


Tear in My Heart

by monroeslittle



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monroeslittle/pseuds/monroeslittle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It wasn’t a debate. She was going to start the search for apartments again, and, yeah, she wasn’t going to find a place this cheap, but she was willing to pay for the luxury of forgetting that Bellamy existed, and never, ever having to deal with his lunacy again.</p><p>The moment that she found a place, she was gone."</p><p>modern AU. Clarke needs a cheap, safe place to live, and Monty's boyfriend has a place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tear in My Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tacosandflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacosandflowers/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, tacosandflowers! I hope this is what you wanted, and that you have a wonderful, cookie-filled Christmas! :)
> 
> Title and lyrics are from "Tear in My Heart" by Twenty One Pilots.

_You fell asleep in my car, I drove the whole time,  
But that's okay, I'll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine.  
I'm driving here I sit, cursing my government,  
For not using my taxes to fill holes with more cement.  
_

\---

She collapsed into the booth with a huff of breath. “I know I’m late, but I have a totally great excuse. You ready for it? There’s a new Tetris app, and I downloaded it.”  
  
Monty grinned.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said, scrunching up her nose. “How long have you been here?”  
  
“Not that long,” he assured. “It’s not like I’ve never met you for lunch before, so, you know, I came fifteen minutes late to start with. I ordered a pitcher of mimosas, too.”  
  
“You’re the best, you know that?”  
  
“I’m aware. You and my mom tell me a lot.”  
  
She laughed. “Okay, first things first. How are you? We haven’t hung out in _months_. Is your program still going okay? You like the people, and the classes, and everything?”  
  
“It’s great,” he said. “It’s still going great.”  
  
“Yeah? Good.”  
  
He updated her on his class, and his professors, and the rest of the people in his program, telling her a story about a guy who started a war on Facebook when he dissed _Fringe_. Their drinks came, and they ordered food; their food came, and Clarke cleared her throat.  
  
“Now,” she said. “Here’s what I really want to know. How’s your _boyfriend_?”  
  
Monty smiled. “He’s fine.”  
  
“That’s it? You post _one_ picture of him on Facebook, and tell me _he’s fine_? That’s what I have to go on? How can I prematurely judge him if that’s all you give me to go on?”  
  
He ducked his head with a grin. “It’s new,” he said. “But it’s good. Seriously. It’s good.”  
  
She smiled. “I’m glad.”  
  
“What about you?” Monty asked. “We’ve been talking about me for half an hour.”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
He raised his eyebrows at her.  
  
“Things with me are the same. Things with work are good, and things with my mom are shitty. Romantically, I have nothing new to report.” She shrugged. “I’m fine.”  
  
“Raven’s been posting a lot of Pepe the Frog on your Facebook,” he said.  
  
Clarke snorted. “I noticed.”  
  
“I figured that meant that you needed to be cheered up, or something.” He paused.  
  
She sighed. “I’m fine. I am. But things have been up in the air a little lately because, um, my mom finally, _officially_ cut me off.” She stirred her ice with her straw, and looked at him. “It’s not like I was living off her money. I have a job. But I was definitely living beyond my means. Now I need to find a new, cheaper apartment. Stuff like that. I’ll live.”  
  
He nodded. “What can I help with?”  
  
“Do you know a place for rent that’s really cheap, and really _not_ shady?”  
  
“Have you looked on Craig’s List?”  
  
“Yeah. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot for rent in the middle of March. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out. But I hate that I have to break my lease. It’s supposed to be through August. I’m allowed to, but I have to pay three months rent, and I won’t get my deposit back either.”  
  
He made a face in sympathy, only for his eyes to widen.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I just remembered that I actually _do_ know a place,” he said. “Nate’s.”  
  
“Nate?” she repeated. “Your boyfriend? You want me to stay at your boyfriend’s?”  
  
“He lives in a house on one of the streets off Boulevard. His friend owns the place, and I think he charges Nate, like, $300 a month in rent, and Nate helps with utilities, too. Nate’s known him forever. It’s a pretty nice place, and you’d be safe with Nate around, and Bellamy, his friend. There was a guy in the other spare room, but he moved out in November. They weren’t going to bother to post anything on Craig’s List, but I bet they’d be cool with you renting it just for a couple of months, or longer if you wanted to.”  
  
“I don’t know,” she said, hesitant.  
  
“It’s perfect!”  
  
She smiled at his excitement. “It does sound like it’d be great. $300 a month? For real?”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
“Before we get ahead of ourselves, how about if you ask _them_ if it’s okay first?”  
  
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah.” He was on his phone, and she was positive that he was texting his boyfriend about Clarke right that minute. “I’m sure they’ll be cool with it, though.”  
  
“What about Catticus?” she asked. “Would they be okay with him?”  
  
“Probably,” Monty said, texting. “Nate loves Jarvis.”  
  
She bit her lip. “It would be great,” she admitted. “It’d save me from having to freeload on somebody’s couch until I found a place that worked. Where on Boulevard is it?”  
  
“Nate says come by whenever to see the place!” Monty exclaimed.  
  
His enthusiasm was infectious; they finished the rest of their brunch quickly, and headed out, and it was impossible for Clarke to resist getting her hopes up that this was going to work as perfectly as Monty seemed to think it was. $300 a month was _amazing_. Even if it turned out to be more than that, the way Monty talked made her certain that it wouldn’t be outside Clarke’s new, strained budget. Plus, it’d be safe, and with people she knew. Sort of. Monty told her more about Nate while she drove, and a little about Bellamy, too.  
  
She’d known that Nate was a landscaper, and she learned that Bellamy was, too. Both of them were from the city, and Monty claimed that they were easygoing but set in their ways, were fans of baseball, fishing, and Pawn Stars, and were big on cheap, gross beer.  
  
“Budweiser, and stuff,” Monty said. “They refuse to buy anything that costs more.”  
  
“That’s fine with me,” Clarke replied, making a left at Monty’s nod. “I’m happy to buy my own beer. For $300 a month, I’ll buy them craft, too, and blow their minds.”  
  
Monty smiled.  
  
“You know,” she said, breezy, “this turned out to be a really great way to get you to dish about you boyfriend.” She grinned. “Who knew you’d be into a guy who liked sports?”  
  
“The very first time they met, Jasper thought Nate was talking about baseball on the Wii.”  
  
Clarke snorted.  
  
“He isn’t the kind of guy I used to picture myself dating either,” Monty continued, softer. “But he’s the first real boyfriend I’ve ever had, and I’m pretty into him, so who knows.”  
  
She smiled, and took a right onto Boulevard.  
  
In minutes, they pulled up to the house. Clarke thought she was going to have to park on the street, but Monty directed her around the corner into an alley, and a driveway.  
  
The house was small, cute. It had a narrow, nondescript shape, didn’t really have a yard, and looked in general like it’d seen better days. But the windows were framed with shutters, and there was a porch with a swing, and a bunch of small potted plants on it.  
  
Inside, they found Nate on the couch.  
  
He sat up at their entrance, muting the TV. He was attractive, and older.  
  
“Nate, this is Clarke.”  
  
“You want to see the room?” Nate asked.  
  
She nodded.  
  
He led her up the stairs, saying that rent was $300 a month plus utilities. “I don’t have a lease, or anything. Murphy didn’t either. More like a gentlemen’s agreement, or whatever.” The ceiling of the room was slanted with the roof, but there were a couple of nice big windows, and it was a pretty big room. Clarke liked the rest of the house, too.

It felt comfortable, felt like a home. There wasn’t a central air system, but that was fine.  
  
Nate was nice, offering her a beer while they waited for Bellamy to get off work.  
  
“I know this is really short notice,” Clarke said.  
  
He shrugged. “It’s cool. You need a place; we’ve got a place.”  
  
They ended up watching a lot of _Family Feud_ on the TV until Bellamy arrived.  
  
It was cold out, but it was obvious that he’d been at work, and worked up a sweat, which was a pretty good look for him; he was attractive, was tan, freckled, and broad-shouldered. He discarded his jacket, and got a beer from the fridge as soon as he came in, only turning to them after he’d opened his beer, and Monty introduced Clarke to him.  
  
“You cool with $300 a month plus a third of utilities?” he asked.  
  
“That’d be great, honestly,” she said. “Um, I have a cat. Is that cool?” It occurred to her now that she had cat faces painted on her nails, making her seem like a crazy cat lady.  
  
“Yeah. Keep the litter box in your room, and we’re good.”  
  
She nodded.  
  
“I can write up a lease if you want one,” he went on. “Or we can just call it by ear. Let me know in advance if you want to leave.” He paused. Is this just temporary, or?”  
  
“If it works out, I’d probably like to stay for a while. Moving is the worst.”  
  
“Okay. Lease?”  
  
“I guess I don’t need one.”  
  
“Okay.” There was a pause. “You can move in whenever, and pay me when you can.”  
  
That was that.  
  
He didn’t ask anything about her job, her situation, or about her in general.  
  
But if he was cool with that, she was, too.  
  
In the end, it turned out to be simpler than Clarke would’ve thought possible. She hadn’t known what she was going to do that morning, but she was set by the end of the afternoon. She gave Bellamy a check for $300, and began to pack her things that night.  
  
“You’re the best,” Clarke told Monty.  
  
“I know.”  
  
She moved in the following Saturday morning, getting Monty, Jasper, and Raven to help. Nate wasn’t about to trust any of them with his pickup, but he let them fill it with Clarke’s stuff, and drove it himself, helping them unpack after. Bellamy was at work, but it turned out that he’d repainted Clarke’s room for her during the week. It looked good.  
  
This was going to work.  
  
She might not know a ton about her roommates, but they seemed nice enough, and she’d get to know them. Even if it turned out that she didn’t really like them, she’d be able to live with them.  
  
\---  
  
Well, she was wrong. She’d forked over $300, moved in, and committed, and she wanted it to work. She _needed_ it to work. But it didn’t take her long to realize that living with somebody she didn’t really like? _Sucked_. She was ready to kill somebody, and somebody in particular.  
  
She liked Nate. He was laidback, easy to get along with.  
  
She wasn’t at war with Nate.  
  
It started with little, more obvious things.  
  
“It’s, like, okay, I get that Bellamy likes a neat house,” she said, “which is _fine_. I mean, I’m aware that I’m not super neat, but I appreciate a nice, tidy house as much as the next person. Here’s the thing, though. He literally picks up my stuff when I’m at work, and dumps it on my bed in a pile. He put my _boots_ on my bed yesterday, Raven. My _boots_.”  
  
“Just tell him not to fuck with your stuff,” Raven said.  
  
“But I can’t, though! I can’t just tell him not to touch it! It’s my stuff, but it’s _his_ house, and I am leaving my stuff around. Not that leaving a sweater in the kitchen is a crime. The way he acts, you’d think I was strutting around peeing on everything that he loves.”  
  
“It’s his house, but you pay to live there, too. Seriously. Tell him to go fuck himself.”  
  
That wasn’t even the worst of it when it came to this guy, though.  
  
She got that it was his house, and she was bad about keeping her stuff in her room. Even if she didn’t like that he was an ass about it, she kind of got where he was coming from.  
  
That didn’t excuse the way that he treated her cat.  
  
He saw Catticus, and slammed his hand on the nearest hard surface to scare him off. It was _cruel_. He went to the store specifically to buy a giant spray bottle to spray Catticus in the face whenever Catticus did _anything_. Catticus jumped on the counter, and got sprayed. He kneaded the couch, and got sprayed. He batted at a pair of headphones, and got sprayed.  
  
Clarke locked Catticus in her room, but that made him yowl for _hours_.  
  
Bellamy never, ever complained to Clarke about her cat, but his actions spoke for him.  
  
He was annoyingly passive aggressive like that, and it was like he went out of his way to piss her off. He actually took the time out of his day to recognize the whole fucking fridge, and she was positive that it was just an excuse to shove all of her beer to the back where it was impossible to reach without first pulling out half the contents of the fridge.  
  
Seriously? Fuck you, Bellamy. Fuck you.  
  
She rearranged a shelf in the morning after he left for work, bringing her beer to the front. She kept it to one far side, though, in a compromise. She wasn’t trying to start a fight.  
  
Overnight, the beer was magically returned to the back of the fridge.  
  
It got worse.  
  
It was March, and it was freezing out. Literally. There was a foot of snow on the ground. But, apparently, Bellamy was a fucking artic penguin, and impervious to the cold.  
  
“It’s cold in here,” she said, talking while she heated up spaghetti for dinner. She was being casual, and nonconfrontational. “Is the heat on high, or could we turn it up?”  
  
“It’s high enough,” Bellamy replied. He didn’t take his eyes off the TV.  
  
She eyed him. “I might actually freeze to death, you know.”  
  
“Not if you put on a sweater.”  
  
She swore it was colder when she woke in the morning. She checked the thermostat, and discovered to her fury that the heat was turned _down_ from where it was the night before.  
  
“Damn it, you _butthole_.” She spun the dial to high.  
  
That was when the silent, not-that-stealthy war over the thermostat began.  
  
He left for work at six in the morning, making it easy for her to change it after he left, and before she needed to go in at nine. But he got off at five, and she didn't; it was always changed back by the time she returned in the evening, and stayed that way until morning.  
  
Fed up, she snuck out of bed at night to change it.  
  
She knew as soon as she woke up that he switched it back. Jackass.  
  
She turned it up, and went to Kroger at seven in the morning. If he wanted to fight, they’d fight. She bought fifty dollars worth of good, quality beer, and crammed it into the fridge, forcing his shitty beer cans to the back. She ate breakfast, and left her bowl on the counter before she headed to work at last, throwing a sweater on the sofa on her way out just because. Suck it, Bellamy.  
  
\---  
  
She went to Raven’s after work, wanting to hang out with her, and to drink a lot of wine, and to deny Bellamy the satisfaction of still being awake to see her walk into the iceberg that was his house.  
  
“It’s like the Fortress of Solitude in there,” Clarke complained.  
  
“Have you talked to Monty’s boyfriend?” Raven asked. “Tried to get him on your side?”  
  
“Um, well. My tactic has pretty much been to bitch about it, and to change the thermostat when the fucktard isn’t there to stop me. I should talk to Nate, though; you’re right.”  
  
Raven nodded. “Not that I’m against your tactics,” she said.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“But you don’t want it to get so bad that Bellamy kicks you to the curb.”  
  
Clarke frowned. “He wouldn’t.”  
  
Raven raised her eyebrows. “You don’t actually have a lease, Clarke. He could.”  
  
“Well, he could, but.” It hadn’t occurred to her that Bellamy might kick her out over this. It just, well, hadn’t. “But he _wouldn’t_. I mean, that’d be a really shitty thing to do.”  
  
“You’ve told me repeatedly what a really shitty person he is.”  
  
“Not like _that_ ,” Clarke said. “He’s an asshat, but he isn’t a douche.” She sat up a little on the sofa. “I mean, he did let me move into his house at the drop of the hat, and I’m basically just paying rent for the sake of appearances. I pay $300 a month, Raven. $300. I was paying $1,400 a month for my apartment.” Now that she was saying it, she felt bad. She’d been imagining Bellamy to be a villain in all of this, but he wasn’t. Not really. He let her move into his house without knowing anything about other than the fact that she was Monty’s friend, and she needed a cheap, safe place to live in a hurry.  
  
It wouldn’t kill her to be a slightly more considerate when it came to him, and his house.  
  
“I’ll talk to Nate,” Clarke said. “He’s cool, and I’m sure Bellamy would actually listen to him. If worse comes to worse, I can always put on a sweater. Let him win this round.”  
  
“For the record, I’m against that plan.”

Clarke smiled. “In his defense, I will say that he isn’t a creep. He’s definitely a dick, but not the gross, entitled kind. Like you know how some guys talk to you like they just naturally expect you to be attracted to them, and it’s creepy and patronizing? He doesn’t do that. It’s kind of refreshing.”  
  
“He’s never hit on you?”  
  
“I don’t think he knows I’m a female.”  
  
“Gay?”  
  
“He’s brought home three different women in the month that I’ve lived there.”  
  
“Well, I guess you aren’t his type.”  
  
“I’m okay with that.”  
  
Raven smirked. “So.” She reached for the wine, and topped off Clarke’s glass, too. “What are you going to do?”  
  
Clarke sighed. “I’m going to back off a little. Unfortunately. I’ll talk to Nate, I guess, and lay off the thermostat. It _is_ his house. What do you think the chances are that if I start playing nice, putting on sweaters, and acting like I’ve lost, he’ll feel bad and let me win?”  
  
\---  
  
She was in the middle of shaving her legs, humming to the lyrics to that song from _The Voice_ when the door slammed open, and she jerked in surprise, nicking her leg.  
  
“Clarke!” Bellamy barked.  
  
“Why the hell are you in here?” she asked, alarmed. “Is something—?”  
  
“You’ve been in here for an _hour_.”  
  
She blinked. “I—”  
  
“What do you possibly need to do in the shower that takes an _hour_? You know how much fucking water you’re wasting, singing to the showerhead? If we use more than ten thousand gallons of water in a cycle, the cost _per gallon_ goes up by three fucking cents!”  
  
“Oh, my _God_ ,” she exclaimed. “Did you barge in here to yell at me about water usage?”  
  
“This isn’t the goddamn spa, Clarke.”  
  
“I’m in the _shower_! I’m naked! You can’t just come in here, and—”  
  
“The cost of water for each of us went _up_ in February despite the fact that we split it three ways instead of two. You used so much water that you made it _more_ expensive for—”  
  
“Get _out_!”  
  
“—all of us.  The bill was one eleven in January, and split two ways that’s fifty five each, but a month with you, and the bill hikes up one ninety eight, which means that we’re—”  
  
“Oh, my God! You’re like a character from a _novel_ ; it’s like I moved in with Ebenezer fucking Scrooge! You know Dante wrote a circle of hell for misers, right? I’m in the shower! I’m literally i _n the shower_ , naked and trying to shave my legs! Get the fuck out!”  
  
He was silent. For a moment, she thought he’d left. But she heard his footsteps, and—  
  
She gasped, and sprang away from the cascade of suddenly icy water.  
  
He’d flushed the toilet.  
  
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” she screamed.  
  
“You better cut the shower off in the next five minutes, or I’m coming back, and turning it off myself,” he barked, and before she could reply, she heard the door slam shut.  
  
She stared at the curtain, and she was going to _strangle_ him.  
  
She yanked the curtain out of the way, getting water everywhere, and stomped to the door in a fury, locking it. Dammit, why hadn’t she locked it before? She returned to the shower, fuming. But she wasn’t about to turn it off. She wasn’t finished shaving her legs.  
  
He might not like it, but he could go fuck himself.  
  
Her hands were shaky with anger, and she nicked her leg with the razor four more times.  
  
He pounded on the door.  
  
“SUCK A DICK!” she screamed.  
  
She wasn’t leaving this shower until she was damn well ready to leave it.  
  
Or until that asshole decided to flush the toilet in his bathroom, and she was blasted with a sheet of insanely cold water, and it happened again, and again, and again, dammit.  
  
“How is that not wasting water?” she shouted.  
  
She turned off the water, and grabbed a towel, storming from the bathroom.  
  
“I’m out!” she yelled. “You win! Congratulations!” She slammed the door of her room shut, rattling the pictures on the wall. She wished she could slam his face in the door.  
  
Catticus was lying on her bed, and he blinked at her in greeting.  
  
“I need you to sit on his face while he’s sleeping, and suffocate him,” she said.  
  
Catticus stared.  
  
Clarke heard voices drift up from below, and it made her steam.  
  
She was moving out.  
  
It wasn’t a debate. She was going to start the search for apartments again, and, yeah, she wasn’t going to find a place this cheap, but she was willing to pay for the luxury of forgetting that Bellamy existed, and never, ever having to deal with his lunacy again.  
  
The moment that she found a place, she was gone.  
  
She got dressed, fixed her hair, and texted Raven to meet her at the bar an hour before trivia. _I need your help plotting his murder_. Also, she needed a drink. Or several.  
  
\---  
  
She was in the kitchen, making an omelet for lunch, when he came up from the basement. She kept her eyes on her omelet, and he rummaged in the fridge, and it was silent. He ignored Clarke, and she ignored him. It was how they’d functioned for a solid week now.  
  
But, naturally, Catticus chose that moment to leap onto the counter.  
  
Bellamy reached for his giant spray bottle. The second that Catticus saw it, he jumped off the counter, and Bellamy decided to spray the water in Catticus’s general direction.  
  
“You sure you want to waste our precious water resources like that?”  
  
“If it stops him from shredding my headphones, I’d say it’s water well spent.”  
  
She rolled her eyes. “Well, I have great news for you.” She cut her sandwich in two, and put the knife in the sink. “Soon you won’t have to worry about my evil, headphone-shredding cat or my excessive utility usage ever again. I’m looking for apartments, and the minute I find a place I can afford, I’m gone. Scout’s honor.” She picked up her plate, and clicked her tongue for Catticus to follow her, passing Bellamy without a glance.  
  
In her room, she checked the listings on Zillow.  
  
On Sunday, she came downstairs for breakfast, and saw it.  
  
Nate was on the sofa, watching TV, and he seemed to be oblivious to the _tower_.  
  
It had five wooden tiers with a cushion on three of them, and the poles between the tiers were covered in rope for scratching, and Catticus sat on the very topmost tier, content.  
  
“What is that?” Clarke asked.  
  
“What?”  
  
“The giant cat tower that my cat is sitting on,” she said.  
  
He glanced at her. “It’s a giant cat tower.”  
  
She gave him a look.  
  
“Seriously,” he said. “It’s a tower for Catticus to play on. Bellamy made it.”  
  
“He _made_ it?”  
  
“Yeah. He’s always doing little projects like that, building shelves and shit. He was super into chairs for a while. That’s what he does when he’s holed up in the basement. I think he got the cushions at Goodwill. I’m not sure where he got that rope stuff.” He shrugged.  
  
She was stunned.  
  
She looked at the tower, and touched a hand to one of the tiers, to the posts. It was sturdy. It was _unbelievable_. She looked at Catticus, who was sleeping now, and shook her head.  
  
She left for brunch with Anya.  
  
Her plan wasn’t to rant to Anya about everything, but.  
  
“How did things turn out with your living situation?” Anya asked. “You find a place?”  
  
Anya listened to the whole, ridiculous story.  
  
“Well, that’s impressive,” she said. “If my roommate’s cat were ruining my furniture, I’d probably just feed it to my dog.” She shrugged, and stabbed a radish with her fork.  
  
That night, Clarke made her dinner, and paused before she headed up the stairs with her plate. The kitchen opened into the TV room, giving her a view of Nate on the sofa exactly where she was pretty sure he’d been sitting all day, and Bellamy in his recliner.  
  
Catticus was scratching up a post on his tower.  
  
She took her plate into the TV room.  
  
“What are we watching?” she asked, folding her legs under her on the chair in the corner.  
  
It was soft of awkward; she felt awkward, out of place and self-conscious, but that faded when she got into the show, and began to pepper the boys with questions about that guy, and this guy, learning a lot about very specific junk, and pawning your very specific junk.  
  
She texted Raven after. _Am I a shitty roommate?_  
  
_No._  
  
She bit her lip. _You’re lying. I’m totally a shitty roommate._  
  
She was, and if she wasn’t certain before, she was positive after she came downstairs for breakfast on Saturday, and found a stranger in the kitchen, stirring sauce over the stove.  
  
Nate was at the table. “Clarke, this is Octavia, Bellamy’s sister. O, Clarke.”  
  
Octavia smiled. “Nice to meet you.”  
  
“You, too,” Clarke said. She hadn’t known that Bellamy had a sister.  
  
Octavia was pretty, tan and tattooed and fit, wearing a t-shirt that advertised an 8K, and she bristled with confidence, had a loud laugh, a wolfish grin, and a breezy, sure way.  
  
“Do you live in the city?” Clarke asked.  
  
Octavia nodded. “Downtown. But since I can never get them to come to me, I’m forced to drive up once in a while to harass Bell and Miller, and make them eat a vegetable.”  
  
“The potato is a vegetable,” Nate said, holding up a chip before he ate it.  
  
“Spinach is, too.”  
  
“Nah, I’m _pretty_ sure that’s a thing Popeye made up.”  
  
Octavia grinned, and Clarke liked her.  
  
It was Saturday, and Bellamy was working that morning, but he was done before lunch, and home. Octavia smacked a kiss to his cheek in greeting, pushed a plate of fresh spinach lasagna into his hand, and told him to suck it up when he frowned at the spinach.  
  
She scooped a ton of lasagna onto a plate for Clarke, too.  
  
It was good, especially with the spinach.  
  
Clarke learned that Octavia lived with her boyfriend, Lincoln, and was in PT school.  
  
She learned, too, that Bellamy was a pretty good cook, “but he’s lazy,” Octavia said, and that he specialized in breakfast, and “made waffles that were better than Jesus.”  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Clarke said, amused.  
  
It wasn’t until later that Octavia found Clarke in her room, and cleared her throat, getting Clarke’s attention.  
  
“So.” She leaned on the doorframe. “Miller says you and Bell are always going at it.”  
  
Clarke blinked. “I mean, we disagree on some stuff.”  
  
“He told me about the shower.”  
   
“Yeah, um.” Clarke smiled. “That happened. But he’s been really great about letting me move in without any warning, and about the rent, and stuff, so I can’t really complain.”  
  
Did they really have to talk about this?  
  
“You know there was this game that we used to play when I was little,” Octavia said. “He invented it, and it was always a surprise when we played it. I’d come home from school, or I’d wake up in the morning, and all the lights would be off, and I was immediately excited, because it meant that we were playing spies. We’d run around the house, dodging invisible enemies. We’d pretend that our watches were walkie talkies, and Bellamy would come up with ridiculous code names for us to call each other. I loved it.”  
  
Clarke wasn’t sure why she was being told this.  
  
“One time over Christmas, we had to pretend that our mission was to a secret tundra base, so we bundled up in coats and scarves and stuff, and—that one went on for, like, three days, and it got so cold that we could see our breath, and I thought it was great. Like Bellamy had made that happen just for me.” She smiled. “Have you figured it out yet?”  
  
“I don’t . . .” Clarke shook her head.  
  
“It was a game that he invented to distract from me the fact that our mother hadn’t been able to pay the power bill, and it’d been cut off. I didn’t even figure it out until I was, like, eleven. Even then, I didn’t care, because I thought it was so much fun to play spies.”  
  
“Oh.” Clarke blinked. “I . . .” She didn’t know what to say.  
  
“Look—my brother is good financially. He owns this house, and he’s got a good job, and he works hard, and the power’s not going to be cut off on him. But old habits die hard.”  
  
Clarke nodded. “I get it.”  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“I’ve never had roommates before,” Clarke said, “and I think I’m starting to realize that I’m pretty bad at it, at thinking about other people’s wants, and, like, the fact that everyone isn’t okay with a cat scratching their furniture. That’s not your brother’s fault, and I’m trying to be better. The thing with the shower _was_ ridiculous, but, yeah. I get it.”  
  
“Good.” Octavia broke suddenly into a smile. “I’ll see you around, Clarke.”  
  
Octavia left, and Catticus jumped up into Clarke’s lap, butting his head against her hand.  
  
She _was_ trying to be better.  
  
She was trying to keep her stuff in her room, and she’d started to turn off the shower when she shaved her legs, and she hadn’t gone near the thermostat in a week.  
  
It’d actually been warmer in the house the last several days. She’d figured it was because the weather wasn’t as awful as usual. But when she passed the heater by the sink in her bathroom that night, it was radiating heat, and she checked the thermostat. It was on high.  
  
\---  
  
Her plan was to use the kitchen to make the bottles while Bellamy was at work, and have finished the project, cleaned up, and put everything away before he got back for lunch.  
  
But she’d barely started before he came up from the basement.  
  
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked, startled.  
  
“I don’t actually have to work on Saturdays.” He shrugged. “I’m taking this weekend off.”  
  
She nodded. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve taken over your kitchen. I would’ve done it in my room, but I wanted a bigger space. I’ll clean it all up as soon as I’m finished.”  
  
“Take your time,” he said.  
  
She continued to sort the toys, and had them in the piles that she wanted when he came up beside her, holding a bowl of cereal. “What is it that you’re doing?” he asked, and she glanced at him to see his gaze skate over the empty water bottles, and piles of toys, her hot glue gun, containers of sequins, and glitter, and buttons, bags of sand, rice, and beans.  
  
“I’m trying to make discovery bottles,” she said. “They’re for kids to play with. I think. I don’t know; I saw them on Pinterest, and they looked cool, so I figured I’d try them.”  
  
He nodded. “I should probably know this, but what is it that you do? For a job?”  
  
“I’m an after school counselor,” she said, “which is, you know, basically, a glorified, overpaid babysitter. But I try to do fun stuff with them.” She glanced at him. “The more entertained they are, the better behaved they are.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“It’s not what I want to with the rest of my life, but I have no idea what I want to do the rest of my life, so it’s what I’m doing right now.” She shrugged. “I don’t love it, but.”  
  
“It’s a job,” he said. “If you loved it, it’d be a hobby.”  
  
She nodded. “True.” She held up two of the bags at him. “Sand, or beans? Or rice?”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“To fill a bottle. Then I’ll put some toys in, and the kids have to shake the bottle to try to find the toys. Or I think that’s how it works. I’m more excited about the liquid ones, which will be super cool if I can figure out the melting glitter glue and corn syrup thing.”  
  
“Beans,” he said. “They’re louder.”  
  
She pointed a finger at him. “I like the way you think.” She paused. “Do you think it’ll be as fun to look for stuff in beans, though? They won’t cover things up as much as sand.”  
  
“But sand moves quickly; it’ll be easy to discover stuff in it.”  
  
She bit her lip.  
  
“Then do rice,” he said. “Still loud, but smaller and trickier to find stuff in than beans.”  
  
“Okay, yeah. Good. Ooh, I remember that there’s a way to dye it!” She puller her laptop closer, and opened up Google. “How to dye rice fun colors,” she said, typing it in.  
  
He leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen. “I’ve got vinegar,” he said.  
  
They were able to dye the rice without a problem, but it needed dry for a while after that, and they switched to trying to figure out how to melt corn syrup with glitter glue.  
  
It was fun, experimenting, and, well, it was fun just hanging out. They’d never really hung out like this before; she’d been living there for nearly three months, and she’d started to watch TV with the boys at night, and learned more about pawnshops than she’d ever wanted to know, but this was different. This was better.  
  
It turned out Bellamy was fun to hang out with.  
  
“Hey, um.” She kept her gaze on the opening of the bottle that she was lining with glue. “I haven’t actually thanked your making that tower for Catticus,” she said. “I know it probably took you a while to make, and you didn’t have to. So. Thank you. He loves it.”  
  
“I’m glad he’s using it,” Bellamy said. “He needed to scratch up something.”  
  
She made a face. “Yeah. I’m sorry about your furniture. Much as I love him, he isn’t the world’s best behaved cat. Turns out I’m not great at the whole disciplining thing.”  
  
Bellamy shrugged. “He’s a cat.” He glanced up from the bottle that he was working on. “I’m still spraying him when he chews my chords.”  
  
“That’s probably for the best.” She smiled.  
  
In the end, they managed to make seven discovery bottles. They weren’t as exciting as some of the ones on Pinterest, but Clarke liked them, and Bellamy did, too.  
  
\---  
  
They began to go to this fun, kitschy bar on Cary every Thursday night, drinking the cheap local stuff on tap, and playing a lot of the dirty Apples to Apples game.  
  
It was part of Jasper’s plot to get a girl in his program to fall madly in love with him.  
  
He’d invited Maya to hang out at the bar, and when she’d hesitated, told her it wasn’t a big deal, that he and his friends hung out there every Thursday night, and she was welcome to join them whenever. Then he’d immediately called up all of his friends, and begged them to come to the bar that night, and, oh, yeah, pretend like they always did.  
  
He'd managed to get a pretty big group.  
  
Monty had come, and brought Nate, and, with Clarke’s help, Nate got Bellamy to come, and Raven brought Wick, and Harper, too. They had to push a table against the booth.  
  
Maya had come that night, and told them that she’d see them next week.  
  
It’d become a regular, weekly thing, and Clarke was glad.  
  
“You are literally the worst winner ever,” Bellamy grumbled.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Clarke said. “Would you like some cheese to go with your _whine_ , loser?”  
  
She was boss at darts, and Cards, and well, pretty much every bar game in the world, and she didn’t see why she couldn’t enjoy bragging about that very true, very important fact.  
  
“She’s a fun, happy drunk at least,” Nate said.  
  
Clarke fired a little finger gun at him, clicking her tongue for special sound effects.  
  
Things were good.  
  
Clarke loved the spring. Things were getting warmer, and the world felt fresh, new.  
  
She painted little white daises on her nails to celebrate.  
  
She got a letter in the mail from Wells, which was rare, and a treat. It made her smile just to see his neat, precise handwriting, and the badly drawn cartoons in the margins.  
  
She wrote him, and told him everything that was going on, how it’d all worked out. She was never sure that he was going to get the letters that she sent him, but she wrote anyway, telling him everything he was missing, and that she couldn’t wait to see him.  
  
Bellamy invited Octavia to come to the bar on Thursday, and she did.  
  
She brought her boyfriend, who was tall, built, and _gorgeous_ , and Clarke told Octavia that they were going to have very, _very_ pretty babies, which made Octavia laugh.  
  
“I think I’m drunk,” Clarke announced.  
  
Harper grinned.  
  
Clarke was at the bar vying for a drink when _S &M_ began to play. She turned on her heel, rushing to their booth, and slamming her hands excitedly on the table. “They’re playing my jam!” she exclaimed. Monty laughed, but she ignored him, spinning to look for Raven. She spotted her in the corner, but she was arguing with Wick, and, well. Clarke spun to the table. “I need somebody to dance with!” she yelled, banging the table.  
  
Octavia laughed, and pushed at Lincoln’s shoulder to let her out of the booth. Clarke squealed, and Octavia took her hand, leading the way to the small dance floor.  
  
Afterward, Clarke bought Octavia a jolly rancher shot in celebration.  
  
“I like you,” Clarke said. “Also, I think you smell really nice. I never get told that I smell nice, but I wish I did, so I like to tell other people so that they knew they smell nice.”  
  
Octavia grinned, and wrapped an arm around Clarke’s shoulders, smacking a kiss to her cheek. “I like you, too,” Octavia said, “and I think you smell nice, too. Like cherries.”  
  
“I wear cherry almond lotion!”  
  
“Your nails are always on point, too,” Octavia said, and Clarke beamed.  
  
Monty took a lot of pictures that night, and Clarke was half amused, half embarrassed when he put them on Facebook, and she didn’t remember half of them being taken.  
  
There was one of her dancing with Octavia, and one of her kissing Maya’s cheek.  
  
Her favorite was a picture that somebody must’ve asked a stranger to take; everyone was crammed into the photo. Clarke was sitting in Bellamy’s lap, which she definitely didn’t remember. But even as drunk as she clearly was, she looked good. They all did.  
  
\---  
  
She didn’t have plans for Saturday when she heard Monty’s voice in the kitchen, and left her nice, warm bed to investigate, finding him sporting a floppy hat and a fanny pack.  
  
“Hiking?” she guessed.  
  
“Nate is going to teach me to fish,” he said, bright.  
  
“If you need to go to the bathroom, go now,” Bellamy said, coming into the room with a cooler. “It’s an hour long drive to the lake, and we aren’t stopping until we’re there.”  
  
Miller grinned when he saw Monty. “You’re such a dork." He kissed him.  
  
“I want to learn to fish,” Clarke said.  
  
Bellamy began filling the cooler with containers from the fridge. “Unless you’re going to fish in your pajamas, you need to change. We’re leaving as soon as the car is loaded.”  
  
She saluted him, and went to change, taking the stairs two at a time.  
  
She didn’t exactly have a floppy hat, or a fanny pack. But she put on shorts and an old, faded t-shirt, and fished out boots from her closet. She put her hair up, rubbed on suntan face lotion, and yelled at Bellamy to “cool it” when he shouted up the stairs at her. She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth.  
  
“Clarke!” he barked.  
  
She rolled her eyes, and finished, going downstairs before Bellamy hurt himself.  
  
“Have you eaten?” Monty asked.  
  
“There’s cold leftover pizza in the fridge,” Bellamy said. “You can take it in the truck.”  
  
Clarke sighed, and took the pizza from the fridge.  
  
The drive _was_ long, but it was surprisingly _not_ cramped in the back row seats of Miller’s truck, and Clarke ended up sleeping on Monty’s shoulder for most of the drive.  
  
The lake was empty, and quiet; the air was still slightly cool this early in the morning, and they unloaded the truck, setting up chairs on the dock, making sure the beer was within their reach, and unloaded the containers of what turned out to be worms. Lovely.  
  
Miller began to explain the parts of the rod, and how to hold it, to cast a line.  
  
They practiced, and Bellamy jumped in to correct Clarke’s form.  
  
“Stand up straight,” he said, “and keep your shoulder still; you don’t need to use it.” He touched a hand to her elbow, and moved her arm, her wrist, showing her the motion.  
  
“Let me try it,” she said.  
  
She tried, and it didn’t really work.  
  
“You have to release it without a pause,” he said, taking the rod, and demonstrating, making her try it again. That was how it ended up working; Miller was in charge of teaching Monty to cast a line properly, and Bellamy commandeered Clarke’s education. She got the hang of it eventually. “Better,” he said. “Let’s try it for real in the water.”  
  
He put a worm on her hook, and she cast the line; she cheered for herself when she got it in the water, and Bellamy clapped her shoulder. Monty got his line in, too.  
  
Now they were supposed to be still, and quiet, and wait for a fish to decide to bite.  
  
“Well, this isn’t boring,” Clarke said.  
  
“That’s why we brought beer,” Miller said, opening a can of Bud.  
  
She sighed. “We should have brought food, too. Or music. I’d have packed them if I’d been given time. Alas, somebody was insisting that we needed to leave ASAP.”  
  
“Remember the part where you invited yourself to this?” Bellamy asked.  
  
“Nope.”  
  
Monty grinned. “Have you ever told them about the shaving cream incident?” he asked.  
  
“The what?” Miller asked, reeling in his line to cast it again.  
  
“If you aren’t going to tell them, I am,” Monty said, looking at Clarke  
  
She shook her head. “Go for it.”  
  
“Okay, so. I met Clarke when we were freshmen, right? She was on the floor below mine in our dorm, and we were in a frosh writing class together, too. We hung out, used to marathon TV a lot in her dorm because she was in a single. One night, we’re hanging out, watching TV, and there’s a knock at the door. Before we can answer, he lets himself in.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Finn,” Monty said. “Clarke’s boyfriend.”  
  
Clarke sighed.  
  
“Or we thought that he was her boyfriend. He lived in our dorm, too, and we knew that they were dating, and as far as we knew, it was going well. Except when Finn bursts suddenly into the room, he’s going on about how he knows that she’s upset, but she has to listen to him, and if she just gives him a chance to explain, they can fix everything.”  
  
“He was such an ass,” Clarke added.  
  
“Well, you might be able to guess that Clarke wasn’t interested, and told him to leave. Or she tried to. But every time that she started, he’d talk over her, and he kept on going.”  
  
“I think you might be building up this story a little too much,” she said.  
  
“Well, I didn’t know what was going on, and Jasper didn’t either. But Finn’s got Clarke cornered at her desk, and all of a sudden, she snaps; she reaches for the shower caddy that’s sitting on her desk, grabs her shaving cream, and just starts spraying it in his face.”  
  
“What?” Miller grinned.  
  
“The stuff was exploding out of the can, and Finn was tripping over his feet to get away, but he was getting covered in the stuff, and couldn’t see, and was, like, holding up his hands to block the spray, but he couldn’t, and Clarke never said a word, just kept spraying and spraying, and walking him towards the door until she shoved him into the hallway, and slammed the door in his face. Finn steered pretty clear of Clarke after that.”  
  
“That’s how I became friends with Raven, you know,” Clarke said.  
  
“She heard the legend, and wanted to shake your hand.”  
  
“Something like that.” She glanced at Bellamy. “Finn was her boyfriend, and had been for three years when he went to college, and decided to date me at the same time.”  
  
“Jackass,” Bellamy said.  
  
Clarke nodded. “Yeah, he was a really big douche. But I got Raven, so it worked out. Plus, it taught me not to bother with guys. You’re way too much work to date. Also, you’re bad at kissing. Like your entire gender. Just so much tongue, flailing around, and.” She made a face. “I’ll pass.”  
  
Monty grinned.  
  
There was a tug at her line, and she jumped.  
  
“Okay,” Bellamy said. “Tug on it a little, and make sure the fish is hooked. Now—” He talked her through it, and she did it, reeled in a fish, and took a picture with her fish.  
  
“You want to throw it back in?” Bellamy asked.  
  
“No!” she exclaimed. “I earned this fish! This is my lunch!”  
  
He laughed.  
  
She didn’t catch another, but that was fine with her. She considered one a success, thank you very much. They ended up staying at the lake for a while, though, until they were flushed with the sun, ready for lunch, and loading up a cooler that was stocked with fish.  
  
“Next week, we’re learning to clean a bathroom,” Bellamy said.  
  
“I’ll pass,” Clarke said.  
  
“Nope. It’s mandatory. There are _rings_ in your toilet.”  
  
She leaned her head on Monty’s shoulder. “You know, I have a feeling your life would be a lot more fun if you didn’t do things like look in people’s toilets. Just a thought.”  
  
He sighed.  
  
They grilled the fish for lunch, and ate on the porch.  
  
Her plan was to nap the rest of the afternoon, but she sacrificed her nap to scrub away the rings in the toilet, and she cleaned the sink, too, and the counter. The bathroom was _sparkling_ when she was through, and she sent Bellamy a snap of the shiny clean toilet to prove it.  
  
\---  
  
She’d gotten sick a ton when she’d started her job, but it’d been a while since the kids had given her something. It figured that when they finally did, it was awful.  
  
She hadn’t felt great in the morning, but she’d gone into work.  
  
The kids hadn’t gotten out of school yet before Clarke was hurling in the trash.  
  
She crawled into bed as soon as she got home, planning to sleep it off. Five minutes later, she was up, and heaving her guts into the toilet. She grew feverish, only for chills to overtake her, and she was shaking while she choked down Aspirin, and returned to bed, pulling the sheets to her chin, and curling up in a ball under them.  
This time, she got to sleep for half an hour, and didn’t make it to the toilet after.  
  
She tried to mop it up, but she was feverish, then freezing, and she began to cry, got a bowl from downstairs for later, and crawled into bed, sweaty and gross and hurting.  
  
She threw up the aspirin.  
  
She texted Bellamy. _I’m really sick. when you get off work, can you get me gatorade?_  
  
She woke up again when there was a hand on her shoulder, and she realized that Bellamy was there. “It’s five?” she asked. For a moment, she thought she’d slept through the afternoon. She wanted to cry when she saw the clock, and saw it was barely past noon.  
  
“It’s my lunch,” he said. “You okay? I got you Gatorade, and Pedialyte, too.”  
  
“Pedialyte?”  
  
He nodded. “It’ll help. We don’t have ice chips, but I smashed up some of the cubes. The Internet says that’s easier on your stomach. Here.” He had a cup of ice for her.  
  
“Thanks.” She sat up, only for her stomach to revolt. “Bellamy,” she warned.  
  
He grabbed her bowl off the floor, and held it for her while she threw up.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said, crying. He shook his head. “I don’t even know what’s _left_ in me to throw up!” she cried. She lay back, swiping at her tears, and pulling the sheets up.  
  
“It’s okay,” he murmured.  
  
“This is gross,” she told him. “You should go. It’s just a stupid virus.”  
  
He brushed the hair away from her face, tucking it behind her hear. “Gross doesn’t really bother me. Try to eat a little of the ice, okay? We need to get some water into you.”  
  
She took the cup from him, and chewed on a couple of pieces. It did feel nice.  
  
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.  
  
“No,” she said, lying back down. “Yes.” She bit her lip. “Can you lay with me?”  
  
He blinked. “Sure. Yeah, sure.”  
  
“Just until you have to go back to work,” she said.  
  
He stood, and shrugged off his jacket, pushed off his boots. He climbed onto the bed, and lay over the sheets, facing her with a careful distance between them. “Try to sleep.”  
  
She nodded.  
  
It wasn’t twenty minutes before she was leaning over the side of the bed, throwing up. He touched a hand to her back, and combed her hair back from her face. She lay back, and tugged on his arm, pulling him closer. He curled around her, wrapped his arm around her.  
  
There was a smudge of dirt on his arm, reminding her that he’d come from work.  
  
“You can leave whenever you have to,” she told him.  
  
“Sleep,” he said.  
  
She didn’t really recognize that he’d taken the afternoon off until the afternoon was over, and he’d spent most of it cuddling with her, and the rest of it cleaning up her floor.  
  
“I’m glad you’re my friend,” she murmured, sick and sleepy.  
  
He set aside the Pedialyte that he’d made her drink, and climbed into the bed again. “I’m glad I’m you’re friend, too.”  
  
\---  
  
The virus turned out to be a 48-hour thing, and Clarke was better by Friday morning.  
  
That was good, because they were going to the beach on Saturday.  
  
It had been Raven’s idea to celebrate the start of summer with a short weekend trip to the beach, and she’d talked it up so much that everyone had been convinced to go. Wick wasn’t able to get off work, but the rest of the group was, and they left when it was still dark out on Saturday, taking three cars to fit everybody, and making it there by nine A.M.  
  
They brought a ton of food, and a ton of beer, and the weather was _beautiful_.  
  
“To the start of summer!” Raven exclaimed, and Clarke clanked her beer to Raven’s.  
  
They swam for the rest of the morning, and lazed around under umbrellas for most of the afternoon, drinking weird cocktails that Maya made from weird frozen packages. Octavia convinced a lot of them to play a game of volleyball with her, and Harper slept.  
  
It was easy, relaxed.  
  
Bellamy dropped into the sand beside Clarke’s chair. “You’re one of those,” he said.  
  
“One of what?”  
  
“You go the beach so that you can put on a big floppy hat, sit in a chair, and read a lot of books.”  
  
She cocked her head. “Hmm, yes. Yes, that’s accurate.”  
  
He grinned, and it was infectious.  
  
She’d seen Bellamy at his angriest, and at his grumpiest, but she thought this might be the happiest she’d ever seen him. She liked it. Happy looked good on him. Honestly, everything about Bellamy looked good in that moment. There was the expanse of his chest, tan and toned, the freckles on his shoulders, and the muscle of his arms, the way his hair stuck up from the salt in the water, and the way his cheeks were flushed with the sun, and his freckles were darker. He could be on a cover of a magazine. She’d buy it.  
  
“First time I went to the beach, I was nineteen,” he said, leaning on his hands.  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
He nodded. “I’ve lived a couple of hours from the beach my whole life, but never went before then.” He paused, and tilted his head at her. “Now you have to feel bad for me, and give up reading to play fun beach games with me, making up for my sad childhood.”  
  
She laughed. “Is that so?”  
  
“I never got to play them when I was a kid!"  
  
“What is it you want to play?”  
  
He shrugged. “I don’t know. What do kids like to do at the beach?”  
  
“I always liked to make drip castles.”  
  
He narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like a really non active activity,” he said.  
  
She grinned. “I was a really non active kid.”  
  
“Well, okay.” He pushed to his feet, and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s do this thing. I say we start with what is a drip castle? I assume it’s a fancy sand castle of some sort.”  
  
“That pretty much sums it up,” she said, putting aside her book.  
  
She led him to the edge of the water, and they got to work. It wasn’t exactly hard to make drip castles, but Bellamy got super into it, so Clarke got super into it, and it was pretty much the most impressive drip castle ever by the time they were through, and admiring it.

“Smile!” Octavia sang.  
  
Clarke was startled at Octavia’s arrival, but she beamed for the camera.  
  
They stayed on the beach until it started to get dark, retreating at last to their campsite.  
  
Jasper wanted to play a game while they ate, and when everyone booed at his suggestion of Never Have I Ever, Monty suggested Desert Island, and was excited when nobody protested. “Okay! Name three things that you’d want with you on a Desert Island. Who’s going first?” He grinned, and Jasper was more than ready to be first, listing his off easily.  
  
“Bellamy,” Jasper picked. “You can take any three things. Go.”  
  
Bellamy ate the last of his hot dog. “Some kind of survival guide book,” he said, ticking off a finger. “Something that talks about plants you can eat, and that kind of stuff.”  
  
“Smart,” Monty said.  
  
“Go on,” Jasper said. “Book, and . . .?”  
  
“I’d bring a knife. It won’t run out of bullets, and it’s more versatile than an ax. Book, knife, and . . . another person.” He nodded. “I wouldn’t want to be there by myself.”  
  
“Cruel,” Jasper said.  
  
“I think that’s smart,” Clarke said. “I’m stealing that idea. I’m bringing another person, and I’ll take a knife, too, ‘cause, again, _smart_ , and my third thing is . . . chocolate.”  
  
“Chocolate?”  
  
“Well, it’s not like we need _two_ survival books, but I definitely _need_ chocolate.”  
  
“You guys would make it, like, a week,” Miller said.  
  
“Hey,” Bellamy said, pointing a beer at him. “We’ve got _two_ knives.”  
  
“Plus, a book about plants,” Clarke said, and Bellamy high fived her in agreement.  
  
Clarke was sharing a tent with Raven, and, thankfully, they’d set everything up earlier. She was tipsy, stuffed with s’mores, and exhausted in a happy, full way when she crawled in at last, sprawling on top of her sleeping bag. It was way too hot to sleep in it.  
  
She was asleep in seconds.  
  
In the morning, their plans to go for a swim before they left were tossed out in favor of getting on the road, and getting to somewhere they could have a big, greasy breakfast.  
  
\---  
  
She woke on her birthday to waffles from Bellamy, and a box of chocolates from Miller.  
  
They’d even put a Happy Birthday, bunny-shaped balloon on the table.  
  
They were gone, but she ate the waffles, sending a snap of herself to Bellamy with the caption _thank you!!!_ and took the chocolates to work with her. She hadn’t expected a present from either of them, and was kind of amused, and kind of touched at their gifts.  
  
The after school program became a summer day camp for the months that school was out, and Clarke was busier than usual with more kids, and more hours spent with them.  
  
Honestly, it exhausted her.  
  
But it turned out that Sterling had gotten the kids to make her a bunch of birthday cards, and they were pretty damn cute when they presented them to her, eager and excited, wanting to hear her praise their drawings. They were hellions, but they were _her_ hellions.  
  
Bellamy texted her to say that she’d gotten a card from her mom in the mail.  
  
She stared at the text. How did her mother even _know_ her address? But it wasn’t really a mystery; Marcus probably found it through some vaguely illegal way. She pursed her lips, and texted Bellamy. _Trash it_ , she told him. Because he was Bellamy, he responded _done_ , and didn’t ask for details.  
  
She got off work, and met Raven for drinks.  
  
“Where do you want to do tonight?” Raven asked.  
  
Clarke shrugged. “I’m down for whatever. But I told Bellamy I’d text him, and let him know if we ended up going to bar. If we’re going dancing, he said to count him out.”  
  
“He would,” Raven said.  
  
“I’m going to text Octavia, too. She’s fun, right?”  
  
Raven nodded. “I like her.”  
  
Clarke decided that she wanted to go dancing, but she wanted to hang out with the boys for a bit, too, and she texted the group to see if anybody was up for dinner. She got a chorus of replies that _of course_ they were, and Bellamy asked her to pick him up so that he didn’t have to deal with finding a place to park downtown. “He’s such a grumpy old man about parking,” Clarke told Raven, amused, and texted him that she was on her way.  
  
She parked, and honked.  
  
“Let’s go in,” Raven said. “I’ve got to pee.”  
  
“In and out,” Clarke said, turning off the car. “I’m hungry!”  
  
She should have figured out by that point that when she walked in the door, her friends were going to jump up, and scream “surprise!” But she didn’t, and jumped in shock.  
  
They laughed, and Raven grinned. “Gotcha.”  
  
Clarke shook her head, and was ushered into the house. “Get the girl a drink!” Octavia yelled, and Jasper handed Clarke a beer. Miller pulled up spotify on the TV, saluting Clarke with a raise of his beer when she laughed at the sound of _S &M_ on the speakers.  
  
That was how a lot of the night went. There was drinking, and dancing.  
  
They got her a cake, or it turned out that Bellamy had _made_ the cake; it was lopsided, and smeared messily in thick chocolate icing, and he’d managed to stuff twenty-six candles on it. Monty turned off the lights when Bellamy carried it in, and everyone began to sing.  
  
Clarke laughed, and Monty threw an arm around her shoulders, belting it out.  
  
She got all of the candles out in sort of one breath.  
  
Bellamy put the cake on the table, and cut a slice for Clarke, hugging her to his side when he handed it to her on a place. “Happy birthday,” he murmured, smiling into her temple.  
  
Basically, it was the best, best birthday she’d had in forever.  
  
In the morning, she was hungover, but she’d expected that. She downed a bottle of water, brushed her teeth to get the gunky hungover taste out, and went downstairs.  
  
“Morning,” she greeted.  
  
Bellamy grunted.  
  
He was lying on the sofa, watching _Law & Order_ on TV, and eating her cake. She pushed at his legs to make room for herself, and reached for the chips that were left on the table. Lots of things were left on the table, and on the floor, food and drinks and trash, Ping-Pong balls, and wrapping paper carnage, and stubbed out cigarettes on dirty paper plates.  
  
“This house is a mess,” she told him.  
  
“Yeah,” Bellamy said.  
  
She glanced at him in amusement. “Feeling pretty rough, huh?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
She smiled. “Me, too.” She lolled her head against the sofa. “First time I got this drunk, I was sixteen, and it was on Johnnie Walker that we stole from my dad’s office stash.”  
  
“Couldn’t drink Natty Lite in a pickup truck after school like the rest of the world?”  
  
“First, that is totally not a standard, shared experience. You, and, like, seven other people have done that. Second, yes, I could’ve, except for that fact that I’m, you know, classy.”  
  
He shook his head. “O’s dad would’ve killed me for touching his stash.”  
  
“O’s dad?” she repeated.  
  
“Mine was never in the picture.” He shrugged. “Octavia’s dad was willing to stay, but he was a jackass. He used to yell at me for _reading stories too loudly_ to Octavia at night.”  
  
She bit her lip. “Is he still in the picture?”  
  
He shook his head. “Nah. He used to hit my mom, and she put up with it. He hit me, and she got upset, but didn’t know what to do. He hit Octavia, and we were out of there. I guess he was fine with it; he never tried to find us. I have no idea what happened to him.”  
  
She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what. “That sucks,” she said.  
  
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “It was fine. We moved in with my grandma. This was her house.”  
  
Clarke looked at her hands.  
  
She’d painted stripes on her nails; it was a trick that her mother had taught her.  
  
“My father went to prison when I was seventeen,” she said, “and died of a stroke a couple of months after he went in.” She felt Bellamy’s gaze. “It fucked me up. I only got into college because my mother handed over a lot of money. Things got better for a while, but I found out eventually that my mom had a hand in sending my dad to prison, and that really, really fucked me up. I stopped talking to her, and I—I haven’t talked to her since.”  
  
“That’s fucked up,” he said.  
  
She nodded. “It’s okay. I managed to graduate without her input on my life, and I got a job, and I was fine without her. Of course, she still put money into my account.” She glanced at him. “I know that sounds shitty. I wouldn’t talk to her, but I took her money.”  
  
He shook his head.  
  
“I guess she got fed up with the arrangement, because she cut me off. Honestly, I think she was hoping it’d get me to storm into her house, and _talk_ to her, and it was smart, ‘cause, I, well, I was kind of more desperate than I let on to Monty, or to anybody. I acted like my mom didn’t exist, but I was living off her. She kept my bank account full, and I used it to pay for a car, to live by myself in a really nice place, to . . . to do everything.”  
  
“You’re managing fine without her now.”  
  
“Yeah,” she said. “But that’s because I get to pay three hundred dollars a month in rent.”  
  
He shook his head. “Even if you’d had to pay somebody more in rent, you’d have figured it out. You’re smart; you work hard. You’d have been fine.” His gaze was warm, certain.  
  
She nodded, dropping his gaze. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”  
  
It was quiet. Catticus jumped into her lap, turned in a circle, and jumped out, running off.  
  
“Toss me a chip,” Bellamy said.  
  
She tossed him a chip, and it smacked his cheek, and fell in his lap. She bit her lip.  
  
He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t mean actually _toss_ it.”  
  
“But I nearly got it in your mouth! Honestly, I was only trying to make your life easier. Here, wait. Open your mouth.” She grabbed a chip, and mimed at tossing it, aiming.  
  
He opened his mouth, and she threw it. It got him in the eye this time.  
  
She laughed, and he reached for the bag of chips, grabbing a handful. “Okay. Watch, and learn.” She tilted her head, opening her mouth, and he threw the chip. It hit her chin.  
  
“Amazing,” she said.  
  
She threw one, and when it glanced his lips, he jerked, and caught it in his mouth.  
  
She threw a fist of victory into the air.  
  
“Did you wake up drunk?” Monty asked, coming into the room.  
  
Clarke stifled a laugh at the sight of him; his hair was flattened on the left, and sticking up hilariously on the right, and he looked very, _very_ hungover. “Nope,” she said.  
  
He nodded, and dropped into Miller’s recliner with a sigh.  
  
“Have some cake,” Bellamy said.  
  
Monty eyed the cake for a moment, and shook his head. “That sugar will _not_ help.” His expression made it impossible for Clarke to hold in her laughter. Monty was oblivious, cranking the recliner, and propping up his feet. “Well.” He looked at Clarke, and smiled. “Did you have a good birthday?”  
  
Clarke smiled, and threw a chip at Bellamy, hitting him between the eyes. “I had a great birthday,” she said.  
  
\---  
  
Octavia invited Clarke to a local art studio for an amateur poetry reading, saying in her text that she could’ve really vouch for the poetry, but the art on display was amazing.  
  
_Lincoln’s been working on the pieces FOREVER._  
  
Clarke replied immediately that she’d come, and Bellamy, Miller, and Monty came, too.  
  
The place was actually pretty packed, which was great. Octavia had saved them seats, and they draped their coats over the backs to save them while they circled the studio, looking at Lincoln’s paintings before the reading began. Octavia was preening like her paintings were on display when they filed in; it was sweet in a way, and amusing, too.  
  
“Oh, I like this one,” Clarke said.  
  
“Me, too,” said a woman.  
  
Clarke blinked, and glanced to her side to see that Bellamy was standing a few feet away, talking with Octavia, Lincoln, and a stranger, and Clarke had spoken to a stranger.  
  
But the woman didn’t seem to think it was weird.  
  
Her gaze was on the painting. “It’s serene. And the way he’s captured the play of light through the trees? It’s beautiful. It transports you.”  
  
Clarke nodded. “He’s talented.”  
  
“I’m Lexa.”  
  
“Clarke.”  
  
“Nice to meet you, Clarke. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at a reading before.”  
  
“This is my first,” Clarke said. “I’m here for the paintings, to be honest.”  
  
Lexa nodded, and seemed about to say something else when her gaze moved from Clarke to Bellamy, who came to stand with Clarke. “Sorry,” he said. “Octavia didn’t warn me before she dragged me off to meet probably the most intense person I’ve ever met, and will ever meet.”  
  
“Indra?” Lexa said.  
  
“That’s the one,” Bellamy said.  
  
“Lexa, this is my roommate, Bellamy. Bell, this is Lexa, who I actually just met.”  
  
Bellamy smiled, and Lexa nodded.  
  
“Well, I hope you enjoy the poetry, too, Clarke. It was nice to meet you.”  
  
“You, too,” Clarke said, and Lexa was gone.  
  
“Well, that was abrupt,” Bellamy said. He looked at the painting. “I like this one.”  
  
It turned out that Lexa was one of the people who was reading her poetry that night, and, honestly, her stuff was the best by far. It had an edge to it, was fierce in an angry, demanding way; she was angry, and she wanted the audience to know it, to be angry, too.  
  
“To be honest, she’s kind of a hypocrite,” Octavia said at pizza after. “But, _wow_ , can she write. And _perform_. She’s always the last to go on, and she always steals the show.”  
  
“She was definitely my favorite of the poets,” Clarke agreed.  
  
She didn’t expect that she’d see Lexa again.  
  
But when she went to get coffee on Thursday, Lexa was sitting by the window.  
  
“Clarke,” Lexa said.  
  
“Lexa, hey,” Clarke said, startled.  
  
“If you need a place to sit, I’ve got plenty of room,” Lexa said, closing her laptop.  
  
“Um, yeah. Sure. I usually end up having to eat in my car.” Clarke sat.  
  
“How you’ve been?”  
  
“I’ve been pretty well. Busy. It’s the start of school, which means I have to re-establish the rules with my kids, who have managed to forget all of them over the summer.”  
  
“Your kids?”  
  
Clarke blinked. “Oh, I work at an after school program.”  
  
Lexa nodded.  
  
They talked while they ate, and it was mostly about Clarke’s job, and Lexa’s poetry, and the activist news website that Lexa co-founded, and talked about so passionately that it got Clarke fired up about it; she even wrote down the name of the site to look it up later.  
  
“I should go,” Clarke said. “I have to be at work in twenty minutes.”  
  
“Of course. It was nice to see you again.”  
  
“It was.” Clarke stood, but Lexa seemed to hesitate, making Clarke pause.  
  
“This is going to be forward of me,” Lexa started, “but I saw you with a cup from this shop when you first came into the poetry reading, and I’ve been coming here almost every day since in hopes of running into you. All that to say that I like you, and was wondering if you’d like to go on a date with me.” For the first time since Clarke had met her, there was a touch of nerves in Lexa’s expression.  
  
“I—” Clarke let out a little laugh, flustered and flattered. “Um, sure.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
Clarke smiled. “Yes. I’d love to go on a date with you.”  
  
She really did have to go to work, but she gave her number to Lexa, and Lexa promised to call soon to set up a time to go for dinner. It was all so sudden, but it made Clarke stupidly giddy, thinking of going on a date with a hot, smart girl who was clearly into her.  
  
She told Raven about it that night.  
  
“Had you been flirting with her?” Raven asked.  
  
“Not really,” Clarke said.  
  
“She must’ve smelled the gay on you,” Raven replied. “That, or she’s really confident.”  
  
Clarke laughed. “I’m going to go with the latter.” There was a beep on her phone. “Hold on.” She glanced at the screen, and couldn’t believe it. “Raven, I’ve got to go. She’s calling me right now!”  
  
“For real?”  
  
“Yes! I don’t think anybody’s ever been this in to me.”  
  
“Untrue,” Raven said. “Remember that weird boy in our poly sci class?”  
  
“I try not to. I’ll talk to you later!”  
  
Lexa was all business on the phone, asking if Clarke was free at all that weekend. They picked Saturday night, and were going to meet at the Italian place that Clarke liked.  
  
Clarke got dressed up on Saturday, enjoying the excuse. She put on a dress that made her cleavage look fantastic, did her makeup fancy, and did her hair so it fell around her shoulders in waves. She texted a pic to Raven, and got an emoji of approval in response.  
  
She went downstairs, and “cats!” Bellamy shouted. “It’s cats!”  
  
She glanced at the television. _Family Feud_ was on. “What’s the category?”  
  
“Things you wouldn’t want to herd.”  
  
“Cats,” she agreed.  
  
He glanced at her, and blinked. “You going out?”  
  
“No, I just thought I’d look really nice for heated up tortellini and _Family Feud_.”  
  
He huffed.  
  
“I’m going on a date,” she said, smiling. “I look good, right?”  
  
“Yeah.” He looked at the TV.  
  
“Well, that was a super flattering reply.”  
  
“You look hot for a girl,” Miller offered, and Clarke snorted.  
  
“Thanks, Miller.”  
  
She headed out, and was planning on getting there exactly on time. She didn’t. She was late, and Lexa was sitting on a bench by the restaurant. She got a look at Lexa before Lexa saw her, and winced at Lexa’s expression; her jaw was locked, and she was pissed.  
  
“I’m sorry!” Clarke exclaimed. “I’m so, so sorry.”  
  
Lexa’s face broke into a smile.  
  
“Traffic was awful, which I know sounds like an excuse, but. Seriously. I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Lexa assured.  
  
Dinner was nice. It was awkward in that first date, feeling each other out kind of way, but the lulls in conversation were easy to bridge by asking Lexa about her website, and the wine helped with the awkwardness, too. They decided to go for pie after; the diner with the super, unbelievably amazing pie was a few blocks off, and Lexa had never, ever been.  
  
On the street, Lexa reached for Clarke’s hand. “I’m glad I asked you out,” she said.  
  
Clarke smiled. “Can I ask you a question?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“How did you know I’d be interested?” she asked. “I mean, you know how it is. In this world, it’s straight until proven guilty. Did you just figure you’d go for it, and see?”  
  
“Basically,” Lexa said. “I liked you, and I hoped.”  
  
She looked at Clarke, and there was an intensity to it that made Clarke blush.  
  
The pie was amazing, and Lexa kissed Clarke on the street after, curling a hand into her hair, and stealing Clarke’s breath a little. “I’ll call you,” she said. It wasn’t a question.  
  
Clarke nodded.  
  
She got home, and the boys were exactly where she left them, but they’d switched to _The Matrix_ , and Catticus was sitting in Miller’s lap. Clarke kicked off her heels, and dropped onto the sofa.  
  
“I brought pie,” she said. She fished the container from her purse, offering it to Bellamy.

“Thanks.” He took it, and opened it, pinching off a piece of the pie to eat with his fingers. “How was your date?”  
  
“It was good.” She curled her legs up under her on the sofa. “She’s smart, kind of awkward. I like her.”  
  
“Think she’s the one?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
She gave him a look, and pinched off a piece of his pie. “That’s not really my style. I’ll go on another date with her. We’ll see how it goes.” She shrugged, stole another pinch.  
  
“Where’s my pie?” Miller asked.  
  
She grinned, and pulled a container from her purse.  
  
Lexa called the very next day, and they went out again on Friday, going to a brand new exhibit at the indigenous art museum. Lexa knew a lot about the history than Clarke, making it interesting to go with her. They went for brunch that Sunday, had wine after.  
  
They’d kissed, but, mostly, they were taking it slow.  
  
It was date number four when the topic of sexuality was brought up.  
  
Clarke was telling her about Raven, and Lexa asked how they met. “In college,” Clarke said. “It’s actually kind of a story. There was this guy, Finn. He was probably the most confident person I’d ever met, and ridiculously charming, and we started dating a month into our freshmen year. I don’t know what I was thinking. He was like the lead of a nineties sitcom with his charm and floppy hair. I should’ve known he was a douche, but I didn’t. Not until Raven, his _girlfriend_ , showed up.” She paused, expecting a reaction.  
  
“This was before you realized that you were a lesbian?” Lexa asked.  
  
Clarke blinked. “Um. I’m bisexual, actually.”  
  
“Oh,” Lexa said, and she seemed to clam up slightly.  
  
Clarke had been around the block enough times to know to plow on. “It took me a little while to figure out, truthfully. For a while, I thought I was a lesbian. I hit puberty, and was into girls. My only relationship in high school was with a girl. It wasn’t until college that I decided the occasional man had his merits, too.” She shrugged. “I’m okay with it.”  
  
Lexa nodded. “But you’ve dated a girl before?” she asked.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Just . . . making sure.” She smiled.  
  
“Right, so.” Clarke cleared her throat. “Raven showed up, and the shit hit the fan.”  
  
That Thursday night, Clarke invited Lexa to come to the bar.  
  
It was a chance for Lexa to meet Clarke’s friends, or at least the ones she hadn’t yet. She knew Octavia, and Lincoln. Most of the group was there, and tried really hard to be friendly. Clarke knew Lexa was trying, too, but Lexa wasn’t great at that kind of thing. Still, Clarke wasn’t going to date anyone who didn’t get along with her group of friends.  
  
Her friends were her _family_.  
  
Lexa seemed to like Monty, and to get along with him, which wasn’t difficult.  
  
“Lexa’s nice,” Monty told Clarke.  
  
They were at the bar, and away from their friends at the booth. “I’m glad you like her.”  
  
“How’s that going?”  
  
Clarke hesitated, and sighed. “Honestly?”  
  
Monty was surprised. He nodded.  
  
“I feel like she’s really into me, but I don’t now that I’m really into her, which I know sounds cruel, but it’s like—I feel like I’m still trying to get to know her, and she’s decided that we’re meant to be.” She paused. “Plus, she’s just not that much fun.” She scrunched up her nose. “That sounds really cruel, right? But it’s just . . . she’s smart and gorgeous and really well-read, but I just—I don’t think there’s a silly bone in her body.”  
  
“That’s not cruel,” Monty said. “It’s how you feel.”  
  
Octavia bounded up between them suddenly. “How long does it take to get a drink?”  
  
“Miss us?” Clarke asked, amused.  
  
“I miss the beer that you promised me two hours ago,” Octavia said.  
  
They got the drinks, and returned to the table.  
  
Clarke met Lexa for coffee on Monday, and, well. She broke up with her.  
  
She was hoping it wouldn’t really surprise Lexa, but it very clearly did, and Lexa didn’t take it well. Clarke tried to be nice, and left it at that, paying for coffee, and leaving.  
  
She tried not to let everything that Lexa said bother her, but it did.  
  
She ended up shopping for clothes on the Internet that night, and buying a lot of stuff she couldn’t really afford, and had to cancel all of the orders right after, which didn’t help. Then she ate a lot of mini-muffins, which sort of did.  
  
Three days later, Raven broke up with Wick.  
  
Clarke had known it was going to happen; she knew Raven, and Raven wasn’t happy.  
  
It shocked most of their friends, but they all helped her move out of the apartment that she’d shared with Wick for years, and it turned out her timing was actually kind of perfect on that front; two weeks ago, Harper’s roommate had moved for a job, and it was easy for Raven to replace the girl, to move into her room, and pay her share of the rent. It felt like the end of an era, packing up Raven’s things while Wick was at work. They’d been together for nearly four years.

But it was what Raven wanted, and that was that.  
  
Clarke took Raven for drinks after, and it was just the two of them.  
  
“We’ll get it right eventually,” Raven said, staring at her cocktail for a moment. “In the meantime, we’ve always got each other.” She smiled at Clarke.  
  
“I’ll drink to that,” Clarke said, clinking their glasses. She wrapped an arm around Raven’s shoulders, tugging her closer, and pressing their cheeks together. “You’ll always be my number one, Raven Reyes.”  
  
\---  
  
Maya invited them to her apartment that Saturday for a lowkey Halloween party, writing in the Facebook message that she was going to make Halloween treats, and that she owned a collection of classic Halloween movies, and, also, everything they needed to do karaoke.  
  
Clarke replied immediately to the thread. _I’m in!_  
  
She loved a good, solid round of semi-sober, super bad, and always awkward karaoke.  
  
Plus, she could use some _fun_.  
  
She hadn’t been able to shake what Lexa had told her when they’d broken up, and Raven was having a much harder time with everything than she’d thought she’d have, and.  
  
Things had just been _tough_ lately. They needed this.  
  
Clarke made Oreo balls that were decorated to look like spiders with little pretzel sticks for legs, and that was her contribution to the night; they went perfectly with Maya’s spread of cute Halloween treats.  
  
Most of her friends brought alcohol, and that was good, too.  
  
Maya put _Halloweentown_ on while everyone snacked, and drank, and talked, but it wasn’t very long before Octavia began to chant for karaoke, and Clarke joined in her chant.  
  
Bellamy announced that he’d “pass.”  
  
They took that to mean that he was volunteering to go first.  
  
Maya had software on her computer for pulling up lyrics for karaoke, and Octavia began to search the list of songs for something. “I think I’ve found the song.” She grinned.  
  
“If I’m singing, I pick the song,” Bellamy said, standing.  
  
“You’d pick some lame 60s hit,” she said. “But, you know, I’m nice. I’ll compromise. I’ll pick the band, and you pick the song. That’s the best offer you’ll get, so take it.”  
  
He sighed, and leaned in to look over her shoulder at the screen. He picked a song.  
  
Judging by the look on Octavia’s face, he’d picked from her band.  
  
Maya gave Bellamy the microphone that was hooked up to the speakers of her television. Harper was the first to recognize the first few notes of the song, and she let out a whoop.  
  
“ _She be my queen since, / Since we were sixteen_ ,” he started. “ _We want the same things, / We dream the same dreams, alright, alright._ ” He touched a hand to his heart, and the dopey, dramatic look on his face was enough to make Clarke burst into laughter. “ _I got it all, ‘cause she is the one. / Her mum calls me love, her dad calls me son, alright, alright._ ”  
  
Raven whistled.  
  
“ _I know, I know, I know for sure._ ” He looked at Clarke, and began to belt out the chorus. She laughed, and cheered. “ _Everybody wanna steal my girl, / Everybody wanna take her heart away, / Couple billion in the whole wide world, / Find another one ‘cause she belongs to me_.”

It turned out that Bellamy had a flair for the dramatic.  
  
He danced, and sang in a horrible, horrible voice, gesturing, and pointing. It was great.

“ _I don't exist, / if I don't have her, / the sun doesn't shine, / the world doesn't turn, alright, alright._ ” He walked toward Clarke, singing to her, and shaking his head,  making a stupid, dramatic face, and she was crying from laughter. “ _But I know, I know, I know for sure. / Everybody wanna steal my girl! / Everybody wanna take her heart away, / Couple billion in the whole wide world, / Find another one ‘cause she belongs to me. . . ._ ”

He twirled when he was done, raising his arms over his head with his back to them.  
  
They clapped, and Octavia whistled.  
  
Bellamy dropped into the seat beside Clarke on the sofa. “You’re welcome,” he said. His cheeks were flushed, and she grinned when she realized he’d worked up a sweat.  
  
“You should take that on the road,” she said.  
  
He clapped a hand to her knee. “Nope. That was a one time only, VIP fans performance.”  
  
Raven was next, and Monty was third.  
  
Bellamy picked the song for Octavia, choosing _My Heart Will Go On_ , and she sang it with an amount of cheese, flair, and complete lack of musical talent to rival his.  
  
Clarke decided to get another drink when Jasper began a long, ear-splitting rendition of _Thrift Shop_. Octavia followed her into the kitchen, and came to stand by Clarke at the counter, elbowing her. “Hey,” she said. Her eyes were too big, too bright. She was tipsy.  
  
“I’m making a Georgia Peach,” Clarke said, stirring her newly made drink. “It’s super pink, super sweet, and super delicious. You want one? It’ll make your vomit pink.”  
  
“I’m not going to be sick.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Octavia smiled, and reached forward suddenly to stroke Clarke’s hair. “You’re pretty."

"Thank you." Clarke grinned.

Octavia nodded. "Yup, and fun, and I _like_ you. I want to keep liking you forever. Don’t mess it up, okay?”  
  
“I’ll try not to," Clarke said, amused.  
  
“I mean it,” Octavia said, and she took Clarke’s hands. “My brother’s not any good at being happy. He’s always got his head in the past, always thinks too much is his fault. But he’s _happy_ when he’s with you. He’s just good old, regular people _happy_. I want him to have that. I want him to have it so bad, Clarke.” She stared intently at Clarke. “Okay?”  
  
“Okay,” Clarke said, softer, and serious. “I promise.”  
  
Octavia patted Clarke’s cheek. “Good.” She hugged Clarke. “Good, good, good.”  
  
Jasper claimed it was Clarke’s turn to sing.  
  
She picked _Do You Believe in Magic?_ and killed it, thrusting her hips suggestively at the necessary, appropriate times, making Raven choke on her drink in laughter, and Maya blush profusely, and throwing a wink at Bellamy just because.  
  
\---  
  
The first big snow of the winter swept over them at the end of November, blanketing the world in white, getting Clarke a bunch of days off work, and, of course, knocking the power out. “Do you think they’ll fix it by tonight, or not until tomorrow?” Clarke asked.  
  
Miller grinned.  
  
“What?”  
  
“They aren’t great about fixing our power when it goes out,” Bellamy said.  
  
Clarke frowned. “How long does it usually take?”  
  
“It’s going to be a while.”  
  
“Two days?” Clarke tried. “Three? _Four_?”  
  
“Let’s just say it’s going to be a while, and leave it at that.”  
  
It was fine at first. The house seemed to retain a measure of warmth, and they packed the contents of the fridge into coolers, and stocked up on candles, batteries, and good junk food. But by the end of day number two, the warmth had disappeared, and her laptop, her tablet, and her phone were dead, leaving her with nothing to do but be really, really cold.  
  
Miller braved the storm to go to Monty’s for the night.  
  
“I should go to Raven’s,” Clarke said, wearing a blanket like a cape.  
  
“If you want to be stuck on some snowy road for hours while it hails, and really big, slow trucks try to clear the wreckage of a bunch of accidents, sure,” Bellamy said.  
  
“I’m _freezing_.”  
  
“I’ve got wood in the basement that’s dry,” he said.  
  
It took her a moment to catch up, but she followed him into the basement in excitement.  
  
She’d never actually _been_ in the basement before; it was larger than she’d thought, and furnished. She saw a table that was covered in sketches, making her curious. Then she saw the picture that was taped up on the wall above a desk in the corner; the walls were pretty sparse, but above the desk was a calendar, a scrap of paper with a list of numbers on it, and that picture of the two of them, of her and Bellamy at the beach, pink-cheeked and grinning.  
  
He’d put up a picture of them.  
  
But she could see her breath; they were in the artic, and it wasn’t a place for lingering to admire the scenery. The wood was piled in small, neat stacks along the wall, and they made three or four trips, carrying up stacks of logs until they’d worked up a sweat.  
  
Bellamy used newspaper to start a fire in the fireplace, and it was roaring in minutes.  
  
Clarke made a nest of blankets on the floor in front of the fireplace.  
  
They scrambled eggs over the fire, and Bellamy had stuff for s’mores, too.  
  
They played with Catticus for a while, crumpling up foil, and tossing it for him to chase. Eventually, Catticus flopped onto the ground in front of the fire. “I guess we’re done playing,” Clarke said. She flopped onto her back, too, basking in the warmth of the fire. She titled her head at Bellamy. “You like to draw,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.  
  
“Is that an accusation?” he asked, amused.  
  
“It’s a question. Not do you like to draw, because I know you like to draw; I saw those sketches in your basement bat cave. But why didn’t I _know_ you like to draw?”  
  
“I don’t _like to draw_.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
“I’m a landscaper,” he said. “You have to draw up your plan for a landscape before you start tearing up the ground and planting shit everywhere.”  
  
“I didn’t know you did that kind of landscaping,” she said.  
  
He hesitated. “Well, I don’t.”  
  
“But you want to,” she realized. “That’s cool, Bell.”  
  
“Yeah, well. We’ll see if it ever happens.”  
  
“It will.” She smiled.  
  
“That’s enough about me,” he said. “Let’s talk about you.”  
  
“What about me? I currently have zero life plans.”  
  
“How’s Lexa?”

“Lexa?” She was surprised; it’d been weeks since she ended it with Lexa.  
  
“Your girlfriend?”  
  
“I don’t know that I’d have called her my _girlfriend_. Regardless, we broke up.”  
  
“Shit, I didn’t . . . you okay?”  
  
“Yeah. I mean, I broke up with her.” She bit her lip. “She didn’t take it so well, though. I didn’t think we were that serious, but she did, and she wasn’t prepared for me to end it. She, um, she kind of tore into me, actually. She told me that I was always late, and inconsiderate, and that I was selfish, and that I _make it impossible for people to love me_.”  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
“She wasn’t totally off the mark,” Clarke said, staring at the play of shadows on the ceiling. “I _am_ always late, and I’m selfish, and it’s not like I make it easy for—”  
  
“Clarke,” he said. “Just ‘cause you aren’t perfect, doesn’t make it impossible for people to love you. That’s a load of goddamn fucking horseshit. You’re late a lot, yeah, and you’ve got flaws. You’re _human_. If Lexa isn’t okay with that, she can go fuck herself.”  
  
“You hated me when you first met me,” she pointed out, shifting onto her elbow.  
  
“I hate _everyone_ when I first meet them. Seriously. I’m an asshole.”  
  
She smiled.  
  
“You think I’m an asshole, right?”  
  
“Just a little, cute one.”  
  
“Put a bow on it if you want, but I’m an asshole. You still like me, right?”  
  
“Yeah, I still like you,” she said, amused.  
  
“See? That’s how it works. The bad stuff is just a part of the package, and if you love the good stuff, the bad stuff comes with it. You can’t love a person in pieces, Clarke.”  
  
“Bellamy,” she said.  
  
“It’s true.”  
  
She nodded, and when he smiled, she smiled, too. For a moment, it was warm, and quiet. Comfortable. But she couldn’t help it. “Can I ask you a question? It’s kind of personal, and a kind of sudden subject change, but. I’ve been wanting to ask you since Halloween.”  
  
“Okay,” he said.  
  
“Octavia got drunk on Halloween.”  
  
“I remember.” His smile was dry. “It isn’t a Saturday with us unless somebody’s drunk.”  
  
Clarke smiled. “Yeah, well. She brought up you, and . . . not to betray her confidence, or anything, but she said that you think about the past too much, and blame yourself for stuff. She didn’t say what, and you don’t—you don’t have to tell me. But I wondered . . .”  
  
He sighed.  
  
“I don’t mean to pry.”  
  
“It’s okay.” He smiled, but it was tight, and off. “You think I’m a _cute, little_ asshole? I’m not. I’m the real kind. O was talking about how I got our mom killed, how it was my fault.”  
  
Clarke stared.  
  
“I’d moved out, and Mom hadn’t wanted me to, said she needed me around, that I wasn’t grateful for everything she’d done for me. But I was eighteen, and I was an _asshole_. I wanted to be on my own, and not have to worry about paying _her_ bills, or babysitting _her_ kid.” He swallowed, dropping his gaze to the carpet. “She was always calling me, wanting my help. One day, she called, and I just didn’t pick up. I wasn’t up for dealing with her that night.”  
  
It was quiet. “What happened?” Clarke asked, soft.  
  
“She was calling ‘cause her car was making a funny noise, and she was worried. That’s what her voicemail said. I listened to it after the police told me her car hadn’t braked when it was supposed to, and a trailer had plowed right into her, killing her on impact.”  
  
“Bellamy,” she whispered. “That’s not . . . that wasn’t—”  
  
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said. “I know. On some level, I get that. But it’s hard to believe it sometimes. It’s just . . .” He looked at her. “It's something I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to make up for. That’s what Octavia was talking about.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said. It was all she could think to say.  
  
He smiled, and this one was sad, and soft. “You still like me?”  
  
“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, Bellamy. I still like you.”  
  
“See?” He cleared his throat. “I’m right, and Lexa can go fuck herself.”  
  
Clarke laughed, and turned away slightly to wipe at her eyes. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Who needs her?”  
  
The power was restored in the middle of the night that night. The noise woke Clarke, and she blinked in surprise, seeing the lights on the DVD player, and hearing the heater.  
  
The fire had died off, and the heat was coming on.  
  
She could go up to her bed; there wasn’t a reason to stay in a pile of blankets on the floor.  
  
But her blankets were warm, and she was comfortable, and Bellamy was sleeping a foot away from her. His mouth was open, and his eyelashes were fluttering, and she didn’t want to go up to her bed. She wanted to stay right here, warm and sleepy and with him.  
  
\---  
  
Her phone woke her up at six in the morning on Wednesday, and it wasn’t an alarm; it was an alert that’d she set up months ago to remind her that _Wells is back today!!!_  
  
She didn’t need a reminder, though; she’d been counting down the days.  
  
His father was picking him up from the airport, but Clarke was seeing him that night.  
  
Or she was supposed to; they’d made plans before he’d left to meet up the night he got back. He’d remember, and they’d meet up. He always remembered things like that, because he was Wells, and he was the best, and he was _back_. He was finally, _finally_ back.  
  
She got a text from him at 6:32 am. _I’m stateside! where are we going to dinner?_  
  
She grinned.  
  
She’d thought it was great when Wells had said he wanted to join the Peace Corp, and she still thought it was great. But, god, she’d _missed_ him. It’d been two _years_ since she'd seen him.  
  
“You should have him come to the bar on Thursday,” Miller said.  
  
“I will!” Clarke beamed. “You guys are going to love him. Seriously. I’ve known him my whole life, and he’s pretty much the nicest person ever, which usually makes for a really boring person, but he’s not boring. You’ll see.” They'd love Wells. It was impossible not to.  
  
She was half an hour early to meet him at the restaurant.  
  
“Clarke!”  
  
She ran at him, and he laughed, and caught her up in his arms, hugging her. “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you,” she sang, and she pressed her face into his cheek.  
  
“I missed you, too,” he said.  
  
She drew away from him to get a look at him. She titled her head, assessing.  
  
“And?” He splayed his arms.  
  
“You’re very muscle-y. I remember you being more string bean-y.”  
  
He grinned, and shook his head. “Yup, I _really_ missed you,” he said. She hugged him again.  
  
They headed into the restaurant.  
  
“Tell me _everything_ ,” she said. “I mean, besides the stuff in your letters.”  
  
He did, and some of the stuff that he told her _was_ in his letters, but it was different to hear it from him, to hear his voice, and see his face, and his grin, and the way his eyes lit up while he talked, explaining this thing, or that, telling her about this project, or that person.  
  
“What’s next?” she said.  
  
“To be honest, I have no idea. I’m going to stay with my dad for a while. Try to catch up with him. Things weren’t great between us when I left, and I want to fix that.”  
  
She nodded.  
  
“How are things with your mom?” he asked. “I got your last letter. She cut you off?”  
  
“She did. It’s been years since she really tried to get me to forgive her, but I guess she felt it was time to up her game. It didn’t work, though. I’m managing just fine without her.”  
  
“You like your roommates?”  
  
She smiled. “I love them. Miller is Monty’s boyfriend, and he’s going to surprise you. He’s great, funny and sweet, but he’s not who you would have pictured Monty with.”  
  
“Not a gay Jasper?”  
  
“Don’t tell Jasper I said this, but Miller is _so much better_ than a gay Jasper.”  
  
Wells laughed.  
  
“Bellamy is really great, too. It’s his house. We didn’t exactly get along at first, but that was mostly my fault. I mean, he was kind of a jackass, but I’d never really lived with anyone, and it took me a while to figure out that I was being a pretty shitty roommate.”  
  
“But you get along now?”  
  
She nodded. “We do. He’s actually one of my best friends now.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah, he’s . . .” She smiled, shook her head. “He’s the kind of person that you never get sick of hanging out with. He’s funny, but it’s not in that obvious, stupid way, you know? And he’s really sweet, too, and just good like you are, and you can tell that he tries really hard to be good and doesn’t realize that he’s just naturally that way, and, okay, he’s kind of a grumpy old man about some things, and a big neat freak, but he’s—he’s great.”  
  
“Clarke,” Wells said.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You have a thing for this guy.”  
  
She blinked. “Bellamy?”  
  
“Yeah.” He nodded, and his eyes were bright with amusement. “ _Bellamy_. You’ve got a thing for him. That’s what that look on your face just now was. You’re into him.”  
  
“I’m—” She shook her head. “I’m done with guys. I admire them aesthetically, but that’s it. Finn taught me that they weren’t worth the hassle. You know that; I told you that.”  
  
“Finn was a butthole,” Wells said. “He’s irrelevant.”  
  
“I’m not _in_ to Bellamy.”  
  
“But you’re attracted to him?”  
  
“I mean, he’s _attractive_. Objectively. But I’ve never really thought about if _I’m_ attracted to him. I mean, I _am_ attracted to him, but. Not like romantically. Just, like . . .”  
  
“Objectively,” Wells supplied, amused.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
He nodded, and tried to make a straight, serious face, but the smirk pulled on his mouth.  
  
“We’re friends,” Clarke insisted. “Bellamy is my roommate, and my friend.”  
  
“Okay. I apologize.”  
  
“Stop it.”  
  
“I’m not doing anything!” He grinned, and she shook her head.  
  
They ended up staying at the restaurant for hours, drinking and talking and catching up, and they made plans for him to come to the bar on Thursday to see everybody else.  
  
But even as they talked, she couldn’t get his teasing out of her head.  
  
It followed her out of the restaurant, and home.  
  
Miller was spending the night at Monty’s, but Bellamy was on the sofa, and _The Santa Claus_ was on, and she stood in the doorway of the TV room for a moment, staring.  
  
He had Cheeto dust on his t-shirt.  
  
“How’s Wells?” he asked, glancing at her.  
  
“Good,” she said. She sat on the couch. “He’s coming to the bar on Thursday. He’s excited.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
She was close to Bellamy on the sofa, could smell him, and feel the warmth of him.  
  
If he were her boyfriend, she could lean into him, and steal his warmth. She could push a hand into his hair, and press her nose into his neck, and sniff him, and he’d laugh, but he’d let her, and he always smelled good. If he were boyfriend, she could hug him whenever she wanted, and she wouldn’t need an excuse for it. She could cuddle with him, and she wouldn’t have to be sick to do it. If he were her boyfriend, he’d sing that stupid, catchy One Direction song to her, _about_ her.

If he were her boyfriend, she could kiss him. She looked at his mouth. _Oh, God_.  
  
“Is there a reason that you’re staring at me?” he asked.  
  
“You have Cheeto dust on your face.”  
  
He wiped at his mouth, and at his cheek, and she stared at his hands, and—  
  
Fuck you, Wells.  
  
She forced her gaze off him, and looked at the TV. It was useless. She couldn’t go back to before, to not knowing. She totally, one hundred percent had a thing for Bellamy.  
  
\---  
  
There was a part of Clarke that wanted to run to Bellamy, throw her arms around him, and tell him that she’d figured it out, that she wanted to be with him.  
  
But she had no idea how Bellamy felt about her.  
  
He’d never hit on her, but that could be because they were, you know, _friends_.  
  
She’d never had a crush on one of her friends before; she’d either become friends with a person, and stayed friends, or she’d gotten a crush on someone, and taken it from there.  
  
What was she supposed to do now? If she never acted on her stupid, newfound feelings, would they go away? Or would that be impossible as long as they were friends, and roommates, and always hanging out? What if she told him, and he just didn’t feel the same? Could she swallow down her feelings until they went away? _Would_ they go away?  
  
It was like she’d become the star of some bad, made-for-TV movie.  
  
She’d just ignore her feelings until she figured out what she wanted to do. If she was lucky, they’d turn out to be trumped up, and she’d be over it, over _him_ , very soon.  
  
For now, she needed a distraction.  
  
“Christmas is in only twenty days,” she announced, “and this house is _barren_.”  
  
“Good to know.”  
  
“I’m serious!” she said. “Where is the tree? Why haven’t you put up lights yet? Where are the stockings, the holly, the _nutcrackers_? Where is your Christmas spirit?”  
  
“I’m going to be honest,” Bellamy said. “I don’t own nutcrackers.”  
  
She sighed. “You’re in charge of putting up lights before I get home from Target.”  
  
“Um, when did we agree to this?”  
  
She waved a hand at him, and left, making a list in her head of what she needed to buy.  
  
It wasn’t hard to find what she wanted: holly, candles for the windows, stockings, a lot of cheap, tacky decorations, including a collection of brightly-colored, cheaply-made, squirrel nutcrackers, and she bought the collection, knowing they’d force Bellamy to make his grumpy, _you’re testing me_ face. She loved the grumpy, _you’re testing me_ face. She probably spent more than she should have, but it was Christmas. It was worth it.  
  
She grinned when she turned on the street, and saw the lights that were strung up in the trees, and dangling off the edge of the roof. They were blue, which was different.  
  
But she liked it.  
  
“Can you put on some Christmas music?” she asked. “I need it to decorate.”  
  
He sighed, and reached for his laptop.  
  
Naturally, he put on some rock song. She leaned over his computer, seeing that it was by Cheap Trick. “I was thinking, like, _Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer_ ,” she said.  
  
“My computer,” he said, “my music.” He saw a nutcracker, and made the face.  
  
She wanted to kiss him.  
  
She started to decorate, and, of course, Bellamy needed to give his opinion, and couldn’t sit idly by; he jumped in to tell her how to hang the stockings, and where to plug in the candles, and they argued over where to put the nutcrackers, using rock, paper, scissors to decide about the really creepy squirrel with the doll. He won, and put it in her bathroom.  
  
“Now all that’s left is the tree,” Clarke said, surveying the TV room.  
  
“Miller is getting it this weekend, and you can go crazy on it, too.” He smiled.  
  
She bit her lip. “Bell—” She stopped.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I . . .” She let out a little huff of laughter. “Can you give me a hug, and not ask why?”  
  
His brow crinkled with concern, but he nodded. “Yeah.”  
  
She stepped into his arms, and hugged his neck, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. His arms were warm, encompassing; he was holding her in one of those hugs that was certain, and real, that was so much better than brief greeting hugs, or obligatory hugs goodbye.  
  
“You okay?” he asked, soft.  
  
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just . . . I don’t know. Having one of those days.”  
  
She knew she was being silly. She knew what it was like for things to go wrong, to be messed up, and this wasn’t that. It didn’t really matter if she’d developed a crush on Bellamy, but he only saw her as a friend. They’d always be friends, and that was enough.  
  
Friends could hug, too.  
  
She pulled away from him to smile, to prove that she was okay, and he smiled, too, and that was her favorite of his faces. They were friends. She was glad they were friends.  
  
\---  
  
The bar was packed on the Thursday before Christmas, and Clarke got why; the place was capitalizing on Christmas, and it was actually, surprisingly fun. There were Christmas decorations everywhere, and Christmas music, and Christmas-themed drinks.  
  
Clarke got a spiked hot chocolate, and it left her warm, tipsy, and eager for more.  
  
Most of their group was there, and they’d brought along friends, too; Maya had brought a couple of girls that she worked with, and Lincoln had brought a woman from his work.  
  
Clarke was most excited about Harper’s girlfriend, though.  
  
She was shy, and hadn’t talked much, but she liked the reindeers on Clarke’s nails, and they talked about that for a while. She seemed sweet, and was clearly just nervous, wanting Harper’s friends to like her, and that got her a lot of points. Clarke approved.  
  
“Seconds?” Bellamy asked, standing.  
  
Jasper wanted a beer.  
  
“Clarke?”  
  
“Surprise me!”  
  
He headed for the bar, and a guy passed the booth with nachos that were displayed on the plate to look like Santa, which was pretty much the greatest thing she’d ever seen ever.  
  
“I want Santa nachos,” Clarke said.  
  
“Go for it,” Raven said.  
  
“Bellamy!” Clarke called. “Bell! I need Santa nachos!”  
  
But he was in the middle of a conversation, leaning on the bar, and grinning, nodding his head at Lincoln’s friend, Echo. Clarke was about to scoot from the booth to join them at the bar, and tell Bellamy that he needed to ask for nachos, too. But Echo touched Bellamy’s arm, and leaned in, and Clarke couldn’t hear his laughter, but she could see it.  
  
Jasper made a joke, or something, because everyone laughed.  
  
Clarke was distracted.  
  
Echo was pretty. She looked like the girls that Bellamy used to bring over. It’d been a while, but Clarke remembered that they’d all been like Echo, tall and slim, athletic.  
  
“You okay?” Raven asked. Her voice was low, but her eyes were bright, amused.  
  
“Me?”  
  
“I thought you wanted nachos.”      
  
“I want nachos, too,” Jasper said. “Bellamy! Yo, Bellamy!” It got Bellamy’s attention, and Jasper mimed at scooping up cheese, and eating a nacho. Bellamy stared. Jasper sighed. “Well, we’re never playing charades,” he said, making Monty scoot from the booth so that he could scoot from the booth. “I’ve got this, Clarke. You want jalapenos?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Jasper got the nachos, and he brought Clarke her drink.  
  
Bellamy had ordered her something that came with antlers on the rim of the mug.  
  
It looked like he was going to stay at the bar; he’d claimed a stool, and Echo had, too, and they were leaning over what looked like a napkin. Echo had a pen, was writing with it.  
  
“These are good,” Raven said. “I like these better than the fries.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Clarke said.  
  
Raven kicked Clarke under the table, and leaned in to whisper. “You’re _jealous_.”  
   
“What?” She frowned. “No. Jealousy is when you think someone’s going to take what’s yours. Nobody’s taking anything that’s mine. What are you even talking about?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Raven said. “You're telling me that Bellamy is _not_ yours?” She tilted her head.  
  
Clarke followed the gesture to Bellamy, and to Echo, who was _touching his hair_. Clarke frowned. “It’s _wrong_ to scare off a girl that’s into Bellamy, and cockblock him, right?”  
  
“Probably.” Raven smirked. “Is that going to stop you?”  
  
Clarke downed the last of her drink. “I mean, I’ve been told I’m selfish,” she said, starting to move from the booth. “It’s a burden I’ve learned to live with,” she told Raven.  
  
“To be clear, this _isn’t_ jealousy?”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“I want you to know that I figured this out long before you did!” Raven called.  
  
Clarke ignored Raven.  
  
She hadn’t decided what she was going to do until she was at the bar, and she acted on impulse; she hugged Bellamy from behind, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.  
  
“Hey,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her.  
  
“What do I have to do to convince you to play darts with me?” she asked.  
  
“What’s your offer?”  
  
“How about if you miraculously win, you get to enjoy the satisfaction of winning?”  
  
His chest shook slightly with laughter.  
  
“Come on,” she said, deciding to take his laughter for agreement. “Cricket. Best two out of three. Loser buys drinks.” She drew away from him, only to grab his hand, and tug.  
  
He stood. “We’ll talk later,” he said, looking at Echo.  
  
She nodded.  
  
Clarke shot the woman a smile, and pulled Bellamy towards the darts in the back.  
  
She was awesome at darts, but he was, too, and that was the way she liked it; the game always got close, and always got competitive. She’d shout when he threw a dart, trying to throw off his aim, and he’d try to psych her out, stepping in close, and murmuring about how she needed this one, and _don’t fuck this up, Clarke_. It was fun.  
  
There was a scream from their booth, and she glanced over.  
  
It was Jasper, doing something idiotic.  
  
But her eyes stuck on Raven, who was smiling and nodding and looking at Wells. The two of them were having a conversation that seemed totally separate from the rest of the table.  Clarke watched them. They weren’t touching each other, or anything; it wasn’t intimate.  
  
Still.  
  
“What?” Bellamy asked.  
  
“Raven and Wells,” Clarke said. “I know that Raven isn’t interested in a relationship, and needs to be by herself for a while, but she and Wells would be good together, right? I’d never thought about it before, but they would. Wells would never be pushy with her, you know? I think that was the problem with Wick. He didn’t mean to, but he was too pushy.”  
  
“Sure . . .?” Bellamy said.  
  
She looked at him. “You don’t see it?”  
  
“I’m just surprised that you’re, you know,” he said. “I thought you had a thing for him.”  
  
She was confused. “Wells?”  
  
“It seemed like it with the way you were talking about him. You don’t?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” she said, incredulous. “Wells? No way. He’s definitely one of my favorite people, but he’s like my brother. Seriously. I love him, and I’ll always love him, but I’m never going to be _in_ love with him. I still remember when we were six, and he picked his nose.”  
  
He smiled. “Good to know.”  
  
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you thought I had a thing for _Wells_.”  
  
“You were so excited to go to dinner with him; you got all dressed up, and everything!”  
  
“I hadn’t seen him in two years! _Years_ , Bellamy!”  
  
Bellamy laughed.  
  
“He’d been off saving the world!”  
  
“Right, I know, and I know you don’t date guys, but it just—”  
  
“I date guys.”  
  
He paused. “No, you don’t.”  
  
“I do, too!” she said. Did he really think that? Wait. _Stop_. Did he think that she was a lesbian? “I’m bisexual,” she said. “You know that. Bellamy, tell me you know that.”  
  
“Yes, Clarke,” he replied, and a smirk was pulling at his lips. “I know you’re bisexual.”  
  
“Then why do you think I don’t date men? I date men.”  
  
“I thought the cheating, shaving cream-eating douche ruined men for you.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Isn’t that what you said at the lake when Monty told us that story?”  
  
“I . . . no. That’s not—I’m more _selective_ about men now. But I date you. Them. Men.”  
  
He nodded. “Okay.”  
  
“I’m serious! I don’t want you to think that I don’t . . . date men.”  
  
“Okay,” he said, amused. “I believe you.”  
  
It was quiet.  
  
“Best two out of three, right?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Currently, it’s one to one.”  
  
“Enjoy it,” she said. “I’m about to cream your ass.”  
  
It figured that he’d win.  
  
“Best three out of five!” she exclaimed. “Three out of five! Three out of five!”  
  
He made her buy him a drink that was boring yet expensive.  
  
“You’re the worst,” she told him.  
  
She was at home, in her PJs, and in bed when there was an alert on her phone, and it was from Facebook, telling her that Raven was posting Pepe the Frog on Clarke’s wall.  
  
Clarke shook her head, and texted Raven. _This is not a Pepe situation._  
  
_This is totally a Pepe situation_ , Raven replied.  
  
_Pepe is a tender, loving frog of sympathy_ , Clarke texted. _Don’t misuse Pepe._  
  
It took a minute for Raven to reply, and Clarke glared at her message. _You’re in love with your landlord. You need some tender, loving sympathy. Pepe is here for you, Clarke._  
  
_Well, it’s just creepy if you call him my landlord,_ Clarke replied.  
  
She expected Raven to respond with emojis, or with a picture of Pepe. She didn’t. _I say go for it. He likes you back. You don’t see it, but he’s different with you. He likes you._  
  
Clarke stared at the message for a moment. _Really?_  
  
_You’re my favorite person in this world, Clarke. I wouldn’t steer you wrong._  
  
Clarke smiled at that text, only for it to be followed by a series of Pepe the frog pictures. She rolled her eyes, and turned onto her side, plugging her phone in to charge. She thought about Bellamy in the room just down the hallway, and fell asleep like that, imagining that Raven was right, that he liked her back, and she got to say he was hers.  
  
\---  
  
She woke when Catticus knocked a book off her desk. He saw that she was awake, and leapt onto the bed to knead her boobs, curl around her neck, and purr on her face.  
  
It was Christmas.  
  
She pet him, and dozed off for a while.  
  
Eventually, she needed to pee, and she got up, scratching under his chin in apology, and headed for the bathroom. She got dressed, and went downstairs, hearing the television.  
  
It meant Bellamy was awake; Miller was spending the holiday with his folks.  
  
She was right. Bellamy was on the sofa, watching _A Christmas Story_ in his pajamas.  
  
“Morning,” he greeted.  
  
“Merry Christmas!”  
  
He glanced at her in amusement. “Merry Christmas.”  
  
She took his present from under the tree, and presented it to him with a flourish, sitting on the sofa beside him. “It took me forever to decide what to get you,” she told him.  
  
He unwrapped it carefully, peeling off the tape, and unfolding the paper.  
  
She’d gotten him a watch.  
  
“I know it’s ironic, coming from me,” she started. “But you’re always searching for your phone just to check the time, and . . .” She bit her lip. He’d been really hard to buy for.  
  
“This is really nice,” he said, taking the watch from the box.  
  
She nodded. “You like it?”  
  
“Clarke, it’s amazing.” He looked at her. “Seriously. I’ve needed one since mine broke months ago, and it’s been on my list forever, and this one is _really nice_. Thank you.”  
  
She was relieved. “You’re welcome.”  
  
“I’m, ah—” His laugh was short, and he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m kind of embarrassed to give you your present now. It isn’t—it’s kind of cheesy, and I—”  
  
“I like cheese,” she said.  
  
“You got me an actual leather watch.”  
  
“Cheese, cheese, cheese,” she chanted, and he stood with a sigh, heading for tree in the TV room. She followed, and took the present from him, starting to tear off the sparkly wrapping paper right then, right there. He’d wrapped a shoebox, and taped it shut, so she had to pry off the tape to get it open. The box was stuffed with newspaper, and her present.  
  
“It’s one of those—discovery bottle things,” Bellamy said, hesitant.  
  
She took it from the box. It was filled with dyed green rice, and a little rubber fish emerge from the rice when she tilted the bottle. “You made me a discovery bottle?” she asked.  
  
He cleared his throat. “It seems kind of childish now that I give it to you, but—”  
  
She looked at him. “It’s fun, Bellamy.”  
  
“It’s supposed to be, like, a year in review. You living here, and everything.”  
  
She shook the bottle, and saw a beer bottle cap, and she laughed when she saw a travel-sized keychain thermometer. She turned it, and there was a purple birthday candle.  
  
She loved it, loved everything about it.  
  
She looked at him, and she knew. She had to say it, had to ask, had to put it all out there.  
  
“So, yeah.” He smiled. “Merry Christmas, Clarke.”  
  
“Do you want to go on a date with me?”  
  
He stared. “What?”  
  
“I’m falling for you,” she said, heart pounding. “I’ve _fallen_ for you, and I want to—to go on a date with you. I want to—” She smiled, and shook her head. “I want to kiss you, and cuddle with you, and sex in between is cool, too, and I want to be able to be jealous; I want—I want _everything_ with you.” She was rambling, but she couldn’t stop. “I want to be with you, and I’ve been trying to figure out if you want to be with me, too, but I’m—”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She stared. “What?”  
  
“I’ll go on a date with you,” he said. “I want it, too, Clarke.” He smiled. “Kissing, and cuddling, and everything, all of it. That’s why I made you a corny discovery bottle.”  
  
“I love my corny discovery bottle.”  
  
He shook his head. “You don’t have to say that.” He took a step towards her, and he’d stood this close to her before, but it’d never been like _this_. “You’ve already got me.”  
  
Her smile was breathless. “Kiss me,” she said.  
  
He cupped her cheek in his hand, brushed her hair behind her ear. She rose up on her toes when he leaned down; she closed her eyes, and he kissed her. It was soft, and sweet.  
  
She laughed. “Kiss me.”  
  
“Lots of tongue, right?” he teased. “That’s how you like it? Just stick it in, and—”  
  
She huffed, curled a hand around the back of his neck, pulled him down, and _kissed_ him.  
  
He surged in closer, deepening the kiss, and she wanted more, wanted everything, wanted him, and she _got_ him; when he drew away; it was to kiss her on the cheek, to rub noses with her, and the sweetness of it made her giddy and shaky and eager. She kissed his lips, and his jaw, ran her hands down his back and up again, and laughed into his mouth.  
  
“See?” she said. “This is fun.”  
  
He grinned, and titled his head to press a kiss to her jaw.  
  
“Hey, wait!” She squeezed his shoulders. “Does this make Christmas our anniversary?”  
  
His lips curved in a smile. “That depends.”  
  
“On?”  
  
He kissed the corner of her jaw. “Do you want to go on a date tonight?”  
  
“We’re supposed to have dinner with our friends,” she said, “with everybody who’s in town.” Her breath caught when he trailed kisses down her throat, nuzzling her neck.  
  
“Let’s skip that,” he murmured. “What do we even need friends for?”  
  
“To fall in love with them.”  
  
“Been there, done that,” he replied, and looked at her, “and I’d say I’m set on that front.”  
  
It was impossible not to kiss his smug, stupid grin.  
  
She slipped her hands up into his hair, combing it through her fingers, and his hands ran down her back before his arms went around her, folding her into his warmth and his smell and his everything, making them chest to chest and hip to hip, kissing and kissing.  
  
“Hey, Bell,” she breathed. “Did you want to go slow?”  
  
He pulled away slightly to look at her. His lips were red, swollen. “Yeah, um.” He licked his lips, and nodded. “Sure.” He cleared his throat, smiled. “We can take it slow.”  
  
“That’s what _you_ want?” she asked.  
  
His eyes seemed to search her face. “Is that what _you_ want?”  
  
“To be honest, I’d be okay with, like, throwing caution to the wind, and going really fast, and maybe having sex, like, I don’t know, how about right now if that’s cool with you?”  
  
He stared. “Right now? This exact minute?”  
  
She raised her eyebrows.  
  
His kiss was so sudden, so eager that she burst into laughter. “It’s cool with me,” he said.  
  
“Is it?” she teased. “You’re really being unclear.”  
  
He wrapped his arms around her thighs, and hoisted her up, and she he let out a shriek of surprise, grabbing at his shoulders. He grinned, and she laughed, clinging to him; she pressed her smile into his hair while carried her up the stairs and into his room, to his bed.  
  
She pulled off her shirt, and he pulled off his, ruffling his hair, and grinning at her; she unbuttoned her jeans, and tugged them off, tossed them away, and he pushed down his jeans, and pushed down his boxers, kicking them away and climbing onto the bed, kissing her when she reached behind her back to unhook her bra. She laughed, and tossed it, fell onto her back, sliding her hands up his arms, and he ducked his head to her breasts.  
  
She gasped, and giggled.  
  
He kissed his way down her stomach, kissed the skin above her underwear before he rose up slightly to tug it off; she lifted her hips to help; he slid them down, and tossed them aside, and bent, holding her gaze when he kissed the jut of her hip, the inside of her thigh.  
  
She sank her fingers into his hair when she realized what he was going for.

“This okay?” he asked.  
  
“Yes, Bell,” she said, nodding and beaming and bubbling with laughter. “This is okay.”  
  
He slid his arms under her legs, and his breath fanned hotly against her cunt.  
  
She pushed her head into the pillow, breathing in sharply when he parted her folds with his tongue. He found her clit easily, and she rocked her hips up inadvertently when he stroked it with his tongue, when he sucked on it. She pulled on his hair to get him to the exact right place when he sank a finger into her, too, and she was chanting his name breathlessly when she came, and he lapped it up, drawing it out, and leaving her boneless.  
  
It figured that he’d be _amazing_ at that.  
  
He nosed at her thigh, and trailed kisses up her belly to her breasts.  
  
He pressed a kiss to her cleavage before he palmed her breasts, squeezing, and pushing them together. She combed her fingers through his hair, trying to catch her breath.  
  
“You know you already worked me up, right?” she panted. “I’m good.”  
  
“I was so excited about getting my mouth on you,” he replied, and he squeezed a breast, rubbing her nipple with his thumb. “I didn’t let myself stop to play with them earlier.”  
  
She laughed.  
  
He sucked her nipple into his mouth, making her still wet, still sensitive cunt pulse with pleasure, and she gasped when he sank his teeth into the swell of her breast.  
  
She was starting to rub herself against his leg when he surged up suddenly to kiss her on the mouth, and she felt him hard against her thigh. She slipped a hand between them, taking his dick in her hand. He swore into her lips when she began to stroke him slowly.  
  
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he said, nosing at her cheek.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
He smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m pretty much in love with you at this point.”  
  
She kissed him.  
  
He drew away from her to reach into the drawer by his bed for a condom.    
  
She sat up to take it from him, and roll it on. “I want to be on top,” she said, pushing at his chest, and he shifted, and flopped onto his back, allowing her to climb onto him.  
  
She ran her hands up his abs.  
  
“Thanks,” he said, smug.  
  
She raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything.”  
  
“I saw the drool.”  
  
She pinched his arm, and he laughed, running his hands up her thighs, and squeezing her hips. She put a hand on his shoulder, rose up on her knees, and took him in her hand.  
  
He held her gaze, and his fingers dug into her hips when she sank onto him.  
  
“Good?” he said.  
  
She nodded. “Good,” she said, breathless. She smiled.  
  
She began to move, leaning forward, and balancing her hands on his chest, rising up, and sinking down. He caught onto her rhythm, and it was sloppy, and searching, experimental, but it was still so good, _fuck_ , it was so, so good, because it was _Bellamy_.  
  
Bellamy was beneath her, and inside her, was holding her hips, and staring up at her.  
  
She laughed.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing,” she said. “Just—” She shook her head. “ _This_.”  
  
“Sex?”  
  
“Sex with you,” she breathed.  
  
He grinned.  
  
It startled her when he rose up suddenly, and kissed her, but she hugged his neck, and kissed him back, and laughed into his mouth when he pulled her into his chest, and shifted, flipped them, pressing her into the bed, and thrusting into her. It was a completely different angle, and it was good, too, really good; he was closer now, deeper.  
  
“Stay on task,” he said.  
  
She tilted her head to kiss the dimple in his chin. “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Just for that, I’m giving you a hickey on your neck.”  
  
“No!” She laughed. “No, don’t you—!” She pushed at his face in protest, but he was able to smack a bunch of loud, slobbery kisses to her neck. He didn’t bite, though, and his efforts changed the angle again, made it _perfect_. “Wait, yes—scoot up—up, up,” she said.  
  
He scooted, and she tilted her hips, getting him to hit _that_ spot.  
  
“Fuck,” he breathed.  
  
She grinned, and pushed up into his thrusts. She was close, and she slipped her arms from around his neck, skating her palms down his back, and gripping his ass, urging him on.  
  
He swore, and she knew that he was losing his control. “Fuck, Clarke. _Fuck_.”  
  
She came, and he followed after, pushing her up the bed.  
  
He dropped his head to her shoulder for a moment, and rolled off her, collapsing onto his back. It was quiet while they caught their breath, but he sat up after a moment to get rid of the condom, and when he dropped onto his back again, she turned her head to look at him.  
  
They were close enough for her to count the freckles on his face.  
  
He looked at her.  
  
“Well, that was good,” she said. “I enjoyed it.”  
  
He grinned.  
  
“Going fast totally works for us. For the record, I still want to go on a date.”  
  
“I’ll make waffles, and we’ll call it a date.”  
  
She nodded. “Perfect. In a minute, though. I want to be here for a minute. Just—be here.”  
  
“Okay.” He turned onto his side.  
  
She reached between them to comb his hair back.  
  
He kissed her wrist, took her hand in his, and pressed a kiss to the tips of his fingers. He ran his thumb over her nails, over the reindeers. “I love your nails, you know,” he said.  
  
She smiled. “Go on.”  
  
He raised his eyebrows. “Okay.” He pushed up on his elbow. “I love your hair. It’s like princess hair.” That made her laugh, but he went on, rubbing her bottom lip with his thumb. “I love how much you bite your lip, and that you can see how it’s redder there.”  
  
“It is?”  
  
He nodded. “I love your puffy pink nipples, too.”  
  
She snorted.  
  
“You asked,” he said.  
  
“I did.”  
  
There was a silence, and it was warm, easy. She was a little sore, but in a good way, was a little sticky, and a little sweaty, and felt pretty much perfect, lying on top of his neatly made covers. She was glad he’d taken them to his bed; she liked how it smelled like him.  
  
“I haven’t done that in a while,” she said.  
  
“Not since Lexa?”  
  
She shook her head. “I didn’t with Lexa. It just never happened.”  
  
He nodded.  
  
She shrugged. “It just didn’t, and I’m not really a hook up person. I used to be. It was kind of how I dealt with a lot of stuff. Things with Finn happened, then I found out about everything with my mom, and—and I slept with a lot of girls, and it helped in its own way. Made me feel good, distracted me. But after a while, it just wasn’t what I wanted.”  
  
“You wanted this?”  
  
She smiled. “This,” she said. “You.”  
  
He reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I tried really hard not to like you, you know. Not to be attracted you. But it kept creeping up on me. It was impossible.”  
  
She bit her lip. “Can I ask when it started?”  
  
“Well, first time I really thought _oh, fuck, I want to kiss her_ was probably the beach.”  
  
“The beach?”  
  
He nodded. “The beach.”  
  
“You should’ve said something!”  
  
“I thought you were done with guys,” he said. “I thought I didn’t have a chance.”  
  
“Well, I _was_ done with guys,” she admitted, and she touched his face, and the dimple of his chin, tapping her finger on his lips. He kissed the tip of her finger. “Until you.”  
  
He scooted in, and she scooted in, too, and they met in the middle, kissing.  
  
“Merry Christmas, Bellamy,” she said.  
  
He smiled, and stole another kiss. “Merry Christmas, Clarke.”  
  
“Hey, Bell?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I’m pretty much in love with you, too.”  
  
He smiled, and this kiss was longer, deeper. Of course, her stomach chose that moment to growl. She broke into laughter, and Bellamy bent to smack a loud, wet kiss to her belly.  
  
They left the bed, and half-dressed to go downstairs for waffles.  
  
He cooked, and she sat on the counter, swinging her legs, and giving him cooking tips like “add chocolate chips!”  
  
She offered to clean up, and had filled the sink with soapy hot water, gotten elbow deep in it, and begun to scrub the dishes when he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind.  
  
They decided to leave the dishes to soak.  
  
She got soap in his hair from her hands, and syrup on his t-shirt, which she was wearing when he hoisted her up onto the table to fuck her, but they’d wash that later, too.  
  
\---  
  
They were supposed to be at Octavia’s at five for dinner. She was cooking, and had made a feast by the time they showed up at 5:30. There was ham, potatoes and spouts and cranberries, green bean casserole, cookies and pie and pudding, and it smelled _amazing_.  
  
There was Christmas music playing, and the apartment was _decked_ in decorations.  
  
“Merry Christmas!” Octavia sang, hugging Clarke.  
  
Clarke smiled. “Merry Christmas.” She hugged Lincoln, and he took her coat.  
  
It turned out that it wasn’t going to be a big group for dinner; it was just the four of them, Bellamy, Clarke, Lincoln, and Octavia. The rest of their friends were spending the holidays with their families. But it was kind of nice with just the four of them, and it made her smile to think it could be like this for years to come. Was that weird? Too fast?  
  
Bellamy stood beside her in the kitchen, and touched a hand to the back of her neck.  
  
She leaned into his side slightly, because she could.  
  
“How’s your Christmas been?” Octavia asked, eyeing them, and glancing at Lincoln.  
  
“Good,” Bellamy said.  
  
Clarke nodded. “Good,” she agreed.  
  
They took their drinks to the table, and began to dish out the food.  
  
“Did you give Clarke your present?” Octavia asked.  
  
“I did.”  
  
“I liked it.” Clarke smiled.  
  
Octavia nodded, and ducked suddenly, pulling at the tablecloth, and looking under the table. “Ha!” she shouted. She re-emerged with ruffled hair, and a triumphant grin. “You’re touching her knee! I knew it! You finally got your shit together, and fucked!”  
  
“You know you’re my sister, right?” Bellamy said.  
  
“Congratulations,” Lincoln said.  
  
Clarke beamed.  
  
“Was it your weird, obvious homemade present that did it?” Octavia asked.  
  
“It turned out that she already had a thing for me, and just didn’t know if I liked her.”  
  
“Seriously?” Octavia said.  
  
“How was I supposed to know?” Clarke asked, amused.  
  
Octavia cleared her throat, and ticked off a finger. “Number one, he looks at you like he’s the male romantic lead in a period romance movie, and he’s madly in love with you. Number two, you leave your stuff _everywhere_ in his house, and he just fucking _lets_ you.”  
  
Clarke laughed.  
  
“Number three,” she continued. “He planned you a _surprise birthday party_.”  
  
“This is going to go on for a while, isn’t it?” Bellamy asked.  
  
Clarke wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and pulled him closer to press her grin into his cheek. “She’s totally right, though. I should have figured it out a long time ago.”  
  
“I wasn’t _that_ obvious,” he said, grumpy.  
  
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Now that I’ve figured it out, I’ll take it from here.”  
  
“You’ll take it from here?”  
  
“I’ve got it all planned out, you and me,” she said. “First, I’m going to never move out, then I’m going to teach you the value of long showers, and then I’m going to keep you forever and ever. The end.” She smiled, he kissed her, and Octavia threw a pea at them.  
  
**Fin.**

\---

 _Sometimes you've got to bleed to know,_  
_That you're alive and have a soul,_  
_But it takes someone to come around to show you how._

 


End file.
